2026-05-21 20:35:02
Alaska Rep Begich pushes bill to protect America’s crypto reserve from admin change
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United States House Representative Nick Begich of Alaska has introduced the American Reserve Modernization Act (ARMA), legislation designed to write President Donald Trump’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve into permanent statute and insulate the federal government’s Bitcoin holdings from being unwound by a future administration. ARMA seeks to do for the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve what the CLARITY and GENIUS Acts are designed to do for the crypto market structure and stablecoins, which is to codify the framework so it survives the next election. Begich, in a statement on X , said the bill would protect digital reserve assets “from the whims of Congress or future administrations.” Why is Begich rebranding the BITCOIN Act? ARMA is a renamed version of the BITCOIN Act , which was introduced by him and sponsored by Senator Cynthia Lummis in March 2025. The rebranding followed discussions with the House Financial Services Committee aimed at getting more support after the original bill failed to gain traction in 2025. Begich’s argument is that what “a president can do in four years, a Congress can do permanently.” The bill establishes the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve within the Treasury, with a separate stockpile for other federally held digital assets. It directs Treasury to acquire up to 1 million BTC, which is 5% of Bitcoin’s total supply. It also imposes a minimum 20-year holding period, with coins kept in cold storage. Purchases are to be funded through what proponents call budget-neutral strategies, including the Federal Reserve’s discretionary surplus fund and a revaluation of gold certificates. In a conversation with Fox Business , Begich stated, “When you look at gold, it is the dominant precious metal reserve. When you look at Bitcoin, it represents about 60% of all market cap for the entire crypto space,” adding that “The market has decided, in the case of gold and in the case of Bitcoin, that this will be the predominant store of value within that asset class.” How does ARMA fit with the wider crypto legislative push? ARMA goes well beyond the executive order Trump signed in March 2025, which only consolidates seized Bitcoin into a single federal stockpile. The Begich-Lummis bill would initiate active open-market purchases and bar the Treasury from selling for two decades. Representative Pat Harrigan, a co-sponsor, sees it as a fix for a custody problem already on the federal books, stating that “The United States government already holds billions in seized Bitcoin with no coherent strategy for managing it, and that needs to change.” The bill comes at a time when there is an increased push to lock crypto policy into statute before midterm campaigning consumes the legislative calendar. The Senate Banking Committee passed the CLARITY Act on May 14 in a 15-9 vote, sending the crypto market-structure bill to the floor with two Democrats, Senator Ruben Gallego and Senator Angela Alsobrooks, crossing over. Lummis had flagged a mid-June floor vote as “probably pretty optimistic,” as news broke earlier today that the Senate has gone home until June. She and Senator Bernie Moreno have warned that failure before the summer recess could push the next viable window for crypto legislation to 2030 or beyond. Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of the leading opposing voices to the CLARITY Act, described it as “a bill written by the crypto industry for the crypto industry.” If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter .