David Sacks claims the US lost $16 billion by selling bitcoin too early.
A Trump executive order created a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies saw price spikes after Trump’s crypto policy shift.
David Sacks, appointed by President Donald Trump as the administration’s «crypto czar,» said the federal government may have lost more than $16 billion by selling off its bitcoins too early.
«At one point in time, we had about 400,000 bitcoin on the federal balance sheet. We sold roughly half of that for something like $360 million total,» Sacks said on an episode of the All-In Podcast on Friday. «If we had held all of that, just that the portion we sold would be worth over $17 billion.»
«So we made this mistake of prematurely selling bitcoin when we should have held it,» Sacks added. «We don’t want to make that mistake with regard to the rest of it.»
On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order to establish a «Strategic Bitcoin Reserve» and a «Digital Asset Stockpile» to position the US as a leader in the cryptocurrency industry. That was followed by the White House’s first «Crypto Summit» on Friday, where industry leaders like Sergey Nazarov, cofounder of Chainlink, praised Trump for ending a «negative regime» on digital assets.
Sacks said these new initiatives would involve forbidding the sales of bitcoins already on the federal balance sheet and storing them in what he calls a «digital Fort Knox.» He also suggested having a variety of cryptocurrencies in a stockpile that could be traded at the discretion of the Secretary of Treasury to balance the portfolio. Sacks added that any future crypto assets seized by federal law enforcement should be reported and stored in the reserve.
Additionally, Sacks said that the treasury and commerce secretaries would be allowed to devise strategies to accumulate more bitcoin for the reserve, but only if those strategies are budget neutral and don’t cost the taxpayer anything. Details on how that might happen remain unclear.
Following Trump’s executive order, bitcoin prices rebounded briefly after recent sell-offs. Smaller currencies like XRP, Solana, and Cardano saw a price spike followed by a quick plunge after Trump named them as options to be included in the crypto stockpile.
David Sacks and the Department of the Treasury did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Read the original article on Business Insider
