Senator Cynthia Lummis Claims Biden Admin May Have Sold Seized Bitcoin Holdings

At the Digital Asset Summit on March 19, Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) claimed that the previous Biden administration may have sold a significant portion of the United States' confiscated Bitcoin holdings.

Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) expressed her concerns at the Digital Asset Summit on March 19 that the previous Biden administration may have sold a significant portion of the United States’ confiscated Bitcoin holdings.

During a panel discussion, Senator Lummis outlined her worries, stating that while the United States government is known to collect a substantial sum of BTC through asset forfeitures, some of these funds may have been liquidated during the Biden administration’s tenure.

“We’re trying to find out how much Bitcoin and whether they are fully surrendered to US custody. We think that could be the basis for the first year’s installment of a strategic Bitcoin reserve. We think the United States has held about 200,000 Bitcoin in asset forfeiture. What we don’t know is how much of that the Biden administration was selling right before the Trump administration took office,” Lummis shared.

Senator Lummis's office has been making inquiries to the US Marshals Service and spoke with United States Attorney General in Donald Trump’s cabinet Pam Bondi in an effort to ascertain the exact amount of BTC remaining under federal control.

When asked why it appears difficult to obtain a simple account of the government's cryptocurrency, Senator Lummis replied bluntly, “This should be easy to figure out. It should be easy to figure out why a federal agency has two times more credit cards issued than there are employees in the agency. I mean, there’s so much failure of just simple accounting and business practices in the federal government that it would shock you. It is inexcusable.”

Senator Lummis has been a strong advocate for integrating BTC into the U.S. financial structure. Last week, she and Congressman Tom Emmer (R-MN) discussed their efforts to introduce new legislation.

Senator Lummis is aiming to relaunch the BITCOIN Act, which was originally introduced in December 2023. The goal of the Act is to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve for the federal government.

The legislation proposes acquiring up to 1 million BTC over a period of five years, positioning Bitcoin as a store of value, similar to how the government manages gold reserves.

Congressman Emmer also touched upon the topic of new legislation. He mentioned that there are multiple pieces of legislation circulating in Congress with similar goals.

Congressman Emmer expressed his confidence that their efforts to establish the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve bill to buy 1 million BTC will be enacted.

“Yes, there is legislation. I think there are different members that have different versions. … I believe before this Congress is done, that will be enacted.”

Meanwhile, Bo Hines, Executive Director of the US Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets, spoke in a separate interview about the U.S. history with seized Bitcoin.

According to Hines, the government once held around 400,000 BTC but sold roughly half for around $370 million—a sum that would be nearly $17 billion at current valuations.

“If we would have held on to that, it would have been worth $17 billion today. I mean, it just goes to show you how important this asset is and what we can do with it to benefit the American people.”

Hines also confirmed the White House’s ambition to expand the U.S. government’s Bitcoin reserves in a budget-neutral way.

“We feel like it’s in the best interest of Americans to hold on to this asset long term and accumulate as much as we can get. … We’ve talked about building the digital Fort Knox for the United States.”

He highlighted that they are focused on executing such a Bitcoin strategy in a budget-neutral manner, to avoid any additional burden on taxpayers.

According to Hines, the internal working group, which is being set up through the first digital assets Executive Order, will come up with “tremendous ideas on how to accomplish this.”

Two weeks ago, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order mandating the creation of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The Reserve is to be funded by BTC seized through criminal or civil asset forfeiture procedures.

As per the order, relevant agencies must provide a complete accounting of their digital asset holdings to the Secretary of the Treasury and the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets.

At press time, BTC trades at $85,748.