Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Hits 'Breakthrough,' Says White House Digital Assets Director Patrick Witt

• White House digital assets adviser Patrick Witt called the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR)'s legal compliance and asset custody structure a “breakthrough” in protecting government-held crypto assets.
• Witt told Consensus 2026 that Deputy Harry John leads interagency collaboration on the SBR with Stephen Miller's policy team, even as attention turns to the Clarity Act.
• Witt warned that failing to lead crypto regulation could force the U.S. to follow other nations' frameworks.

White House official Patrick Witt confirmed at the Consensus 2026 that the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) project has made groundbreaking progress in its compliance framework and asset safeguarding.

Speaking in an interview with Scott Melker, he focused on the legal and institutional frameworks for digital assets. Witt, Executive Director, President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, said, “a breakthrough as far as getting everything in place legally sound, properly safeguarding the assets."

He acknowledged that the SBR has become “the forgotten stepchild” in the legislative effort surrounding the Clarity Act, which has since passed. "There's still work going on behind the scenes. We never put it down. We never stopped working on it," he said, giving credit to his deputy, Harry John, for leading the interagency process and working with Stephen Miller’s policy team.

Witt pointed out the loss of seized assets from the US Marshals as proof that crypto reserves required a new safety approach compared to the traditional ones held by the government. An official announcement is still within the window he had previously given forth, he said.

The Bitcoin Act

The conversation also stressed that executive orders alone were not enough. Witt noted that such orders are vulnerable to being overturned, citing the repeated policy adjustments of the Trump and Biden administrations, and that it is necessary to advance the Bitcoin Act and the American Reserve Modernization Action (ARMA) Act that Begich plans to introduce.

Witt notes that the current period is a critical juncture for the United States to lay out its strategy for global financial competition. "There's no more powerful institutional sponsorship than the US government saying we give this a thumbs up," he said, warning that "if we're not setting the rules, we will be following somebody else's rulebook."

Bitcoin (BTC) was trading at $77,987, up over 2% in the last 24 hours. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around BTC dropped to ‘neutral’ from the ‘bullish’ zone, while chatter stayed at ‘normal’ levels over the past day.

Read also: Bitcoin May ‘Start Dumping Soon’ Analyst Warns — Yet Saylor Teases Fresh Buy With 'Big Dot Energy'

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