Bitcoin's historic "moon landing" level highs have come down to Earth. They rose thanks to the Trump administration's pro-cryptocurrency rhetoric. One piece of insight the Bitcoin market was hanging onto was the creation of a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), and a Strategic Reserve that would eventually hold seized cryptos, but also, perhaps, invest in Bitcoin (BTC) as well.
"I think it's the reasonable next step for the U.S. to do," said Martins Benkitis, co-founder and CEO of Gravity Team, a digital assets market maker with offices in Singapore and Latvia. "BTC is on its path to becoming a better gold, a better store of value, and it would be a wise and reasonable choice to own some.”
On March 6, Trump signed an Executive Order to create the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. Part of that order was the creation of a Digital Assets Stockpile. However, that stockpile "will not acquire additional assets beyond those obtained through forfeiture proceedings." That means the government is not a buyer. The March 6 Executive Order was not bullish for BTC, and prices have been falling since.
More recently, at the March 20 Blockworks Digital Assets Summit, Trump reiterated his desire to make America the “undisputed Bitcoin superpower and crypto capital of the world.” But that's a regulation angle and has nothing to do with government investing.
"I don't think we'll see the U.S. creating a sovereign wealth fund for Bitcoin anytime soon," said Ryan Chow, Co-founder & CEO of Solv Protocol, a decentralized digital assets asset manager in Singapore. "It could be a smart move for Trump to do it, though. As the digital economy grows, holding Bitcoin in a strategic reserve is starting to make a lot of sense. If a government-backed fund were to invest, it would send a strong signal of confidence in Bitcoin's future."
Bitcoin's Official Believers: A Tiny Handful of Countries Only
In recent years, the global financial landscape has witnessed an intriguing development: a tiny handful of nations have begun to invest directly in Bitcoin as part of their national reserves.
In 2021, El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar. As of March 2025, El Salvador has approximately 6,125 BTC, valued at around $533 million, or about 1.5% of the nation’s GDP. These holdings are managed within a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Fund, underscoring the country’s commitment to integrating cryptocurrency into its national financial framework.
The small Himalayan nation of Bhutan has quietly amassed about 10,635 BTC, valued at approximately $886 million
Other countries like North Korea and Iran have official positions, but they may be less impressive examples.
The United States government also owns tons of Bitcoin, but this was never purchased and instead comes from legal actions.
The main thing cryptocurrency investors are looking for is evidence that the pro-crypto Trump administration will become active buyers in Bitcoin, either as part of this proposed Sovereign Wealth Fund or in a Strategic Reserve. The Sovereign Wealth Fund idea never mentioned Bitcoin as being a part.
"The establishment of a U.S. sovereign wealth fund investing in Bitcoin would represent an unprecedented endorsement of cryptocurrency as a legitimate asset class, potentially accelerating institutional adoption across global markets," said Anthony Anzalone, Founder and CEO of XION. He is better known as "Burnt Banksy" for his NFT trade in 2021 of an image of an actual Banksy piece of artwork set aflame.
He said if the Trump administration opted to go the El Salvador route, it would "fundamentally transform Bitcoin’s risk profile for traditional financial institutions and pension funds still hesitant to enter the digital asset space."
For others, the most powerful government in the world adopting the most disruptive form of payment in the world, is a head scratcher. Bitcoin could, in theory, one day threaten the dollar as the global trade settlement payment of choice, let alone eat into the dollar as a reserve currency at Central Banks around the world.
"The government running a Bitcoin fund would be the ultimate irony: an institution that printed money becoming a HODLer of the ultimate anti-inflationary asset. Hilarious and brilliant, but probably too clever for bureaucrats to actually execute," said Shashank Yadav, Founder and CEO of Fraction AI, a blockchain-focused AI software developer in San Francisco, funded by Borderless Capital, a Web3 venture capital investor in Atlanta, and the Spartan Group out of Singapore.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is really the one to watch here.
He said earlier this month that the country's current holdings, all seized coins, could expand.
"What we have now is from a seized asset pool," Bessent said March 7 on CNBC's Squawk Box . "I believe what happened was about 500 million dollars of Bitcoin was seized, and half of it was sold. We'll see what the way forward is for more acquisitions for the reserve."
Jason "Bitbender" Brink, ex-President of Blockchain at Web3 gamer Gala Games and now CEO of Datagram.network in Thailand, said the global Bitcoin community might be better off without U.S. government investment.
"I think we need to be very careful here. Bitcoin was built around the ethos of decentralization—open access, trustless systems, censorship resistance," he said. "If we begin concentrating large percentages of BTC in the hands of a few entities, especially those who may not share or even understand that ethos, we introduce systemic risk."
A very small group of countries have made Bitcoin a part of their government investment strategy, while others have preferred to invest in cryptocurrencies via ETFs, as did Abu Dhabi's Sovereign Wealth Fund when they bought the iShares Bitcoin Investment Trust (IBIT).
Most countries are not investors. The United States, under Trump, continues to throw some bones in the direction of digital asset bulls, but only Bessent has hinted of being a buyer. Bitcoiners are waiting for his first purchase into that newly created Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Fund.
*The writer of this article is a Bitcoin investor.
© 2025 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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