House Bitcoin Reserve Bill Would Lock Seized Coins for 20 Years

The House Financial Services Committee will mark up a bill on September 16 that would lock federal bitcoin in a Treasury vault for 20 years. H.R. 8957, the American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026, does not appropriate a market-buying program. It would write President Donald Trump’s seized-coin reserve into statute, ban sales for two decades, and order a study of extra coins that still forbids new taxes, new borrowing, and deficit spending.

The session starts at 10:00 a.m. ET in Room 2128 of the Rayburn House Office Building. The reserve bill sits on a nine-measure docket, not on a dedicated Bitcoin day.

The Markup Puts Nine Bills on the Same Clock

Rep. Nicholas Begich, the Alaska at-large Republican, introduced the bill on May 21, 2026, with Rep. Jared Golden, a Maine Democrat, as co-lead. Congress.gov lists 23 cosponsors, Golden the only Democrat. Byron Donalds of Florida signed on May 26, 2026, and Maria Salazar of Florida signed on June 29, 2026. The Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence Subcommittee heard the bill on July 17, 2026, during a session on the CLARITY Act.

The House committee repository posted the September 16 markup calendar on September 11, 2026, and updated supporting files through September 14. The week’s Financial Services schedule puts Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent before the same committee on September 15 for annual testimony on the international financial system, then the markup the next morning. The committee’s public event notice is the official listing for the gavel.

A markup is a committee rewrite-and-vote, not a law. Members can adopt amendments, send the bill forward, or stall it. Floor passage, a Senate bill, and a presidential signature would still sit ahead of any vault that outlives the next administration.

THE PATH FROM ORDER TO MARKUP

1. March 6, 2025: Trump signs Executive Order 14233, creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a United States Digital Asset Stockpile from forfeited coins.
2. March 11, 2025: The order is published at 90 FR 11789, directing that Government BTC deposited in the reserve shall not be sold.
3. May 21, 2026: Begich and Golden introduce H.R. 8957 and refer it to Financial Services.
4. July 17, 2026: The digital assets subcommittee holds a hearing that includes the bill.
5. September 16, 2026: The full committee marks up the bill at 10:00 a.m. ET in Rayburn 2128.

That sequence is the whole move from an order a future president could tear up to a statute a future Congress would have to repeal.

Seized Coins, Not a Shopping List

The text of H.R. 8957 tells Treasury to stand up a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve inside the department within 180 days of enactment, solely for “qualifying Bitcoin.” That term means bitcoin finally forfeited in criminal or civil cases, or paid to satisfy a civil money penalty, and not needed for the Treasury Forfeiture Fund under 31 U.S.C. 9705. Non-bitcoin tokens go into a separate Digital Asset Stockpile. The secretary may sell, exchange, or convert those other tokens, but only to add to the bitcoin reserve or to cut the national debt.

Executive Order 14233 already capitalized the reserve with Treasury bitcoin from the same forfeiture pipeline and told agencies to review transfer authority within 30 days. The bill would pull that architecture into title 31 and force a full interagency inventory: each agency head would have 60 days after enactment to account for every bitcoin and other digital asset under that agency’s control, then move the coins under secure custody procedures once the reserve is running, within 30 days of that operational date.

White House digital asset advisor Patrick Witt put federal holdings at 328,372 BTC in May 2026. The figure is an official’s count of coins already on government books, not a shopping target. Trump’s order and the House bill both start from coins seized in law-enforcement cases. Neither document on the September 16 desk writes a check to buy bitcoin on an exchange.

CLOCKS INSIDE THE BILL

• Facility deadline: Treasury would have 180 days after enactment to open the reserve and the stockpile.
• Agency inventory: Every federal agency would have 60 days to deliver a complete accounting of bitcoin and other digital assets.
• Sponsorship: Begich is the sponsor, with 23 cosponsors, including one Democrat.
• Forks and airdrops: New tokens landing on government addresses could not be sold for 5 years from the fork or airdrop.

States could park their own bitcoin in segregated Treasury accounts and keep legal title. The bill also says it shall not be read as a license to seize coins that people already hold lawfully, a line aimed at the self-custody fight that has followed every federal crypto bill this Congress.

Twenty Years Before Treasury Can Recommend a Sale

Section 5 is the clause that turns a custody shop into a lockbox. The secretary “shall hold all Bitcoin acquired by the United States and deposited in the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, regardless of acquisition method, for not less than 20 years.” Coins already destined for the reserve would be timed from enactment. Later deposits would be timed from the day they go in. During that window, no reserve bitcoin may be “sold, swapped, auctioned, encumbered, or otherwise disposed of for any purpose.”

Two years before the hold ends, Treasury would send Congress a recommendation on whether to keep holding or to allow a gradual release. After the hold, the secretary may recommend selling up to 10 percent of the reserve in any two-year period, after weighing the deficit, bitcoin’s staying power, market impact, and the country’s financial position. A separate study due within one year of enactment would describe national-security and financial-stability cases in which an earlier sale might be justified. That study is a report, not a waiver sitting on the secretary’s desk on day one.

Trump’s order already said Government BTC “shall not be sold and shall be maintained as reserve assets.” The House bill would replace that policy sentence with a numbered hold, a 10 percent recommendation cap, and a congressional checkpoint. A later White House could not quietly restart Marshals auctions of reserve coins without changing the statute.

THREE RESERVE DESIGNS ON THE TABLE

The 1 million-coin figure that traveled with the markup news is the Lummis design, not the Begich-Golden text. Treating them as one program is how a committee rewrite gets sold as a sovereign bid.

Section 9 Orders a Study, Not a Purchase

Section 9 is the provision people keep reading as a buying spree. It is a joint Treasury and Commerce study due within 180 days of enactment. The secretaries would examine “the risks, costs, and potential benefits of the acquisition of additional bitcoin over the next 5 years” and whether that can be done in a budget-neutral way that does not raise the national debt “nominally or economically.” The bill’s own findings talk about bitcoin as a complement to gold and a hedge for the dollar. The operative purchase language is a homework assignment.

PATHS THE STUDY MUST WEIGH

• Stockpile conversion: Selling or swapping non-bitcoin tokens already in federal hands to add bitcoin.
• Fed surplus and gold books: Structured buys funded by discretionary Federal Reserve Bank surplus remittances or a revaluation of gold certificates held by the Reserve Banks.
• Forfeiture flow: Future criminal and civil seizures, the same pipe that filled the reserve in the first place.
• Tariffs, taxes, gifts: Optional inflows such as tariff or tax payments in bitcoin and voluntary contributions, if later law allows them.
• Hard bar: No new borrowing, no new taxes, and no deficit spending to pay for coins.

Gold-certificate revaluation is an accounting idea, not a vote on September 16 to mark the gold book to market. The study would say whether any of those routes are lawful and actually budget-neutral. Congress would still have to pass a later bill to turn a staff paper into a purchase order.

That is why the loudest version of this markup, the claim that “America wants to own 1 million BTC,” does not match the pages on the committee desk. Some clips circulating with the same headline show Trump signing the GENIUS Act in July 2025, the stablecoin law, which is a different statute on a different day. H.R. 8957 has not reached a signing table.

Quarterly Proof of Reserve Would Expose the Keys

Section 6 would force Treasury onto a public clock that no prior U.S. reserve asset has used. The secretary would publish quarterly reports on total holdings, transactions, and “demonstrated control of private keys,” including a public cryptographic attestation. An independent auditor would verify the reports, and the Comptroller General would watch the program. If the bill became law, anyone could check whether the vault still holds what Treasury claims, without waiting for a FOIA fight or a Marshals auction notice.

Begich pitched that permanence when he dropped the bill, tying the reserve to the country’s existing insurance policy of gold and foreign exchange rather than to a one-session trade.

America’s reserves balance sheet is a critical component of our nation’s insurance policy, bolstering our currency and providing assurance during times of uncertainty. Over time, the prevailing sentiment as to what constitutes a durable store of value can shift, and as such it is important for us to recognize this fact and provide the flexibility needed to broaden America’s portfolio of reserve assets. The American Reserve Modernization Act (ARMA) ensures digital assets in the possession of the federal government will be consolidated across government and protected as a reserve asset for future generations, protecting these assets from the whims of Congress or future administrations.

Rep. Nick Begich, sponsor, May 21, 2026 statement

America’s reserves balance sheet is a critical component of our nation’s insurance policy, bolstering our currency and providing assurance during times of uncertainty. Over time, the prevailing sentiment as to what constitutes a durable store of value can shift, and as such it is… pic.twitter.com/7XfBwAWFGi

— Congressman Nick Begich (@RepNickBegich) May 21, 2026

Conner Brown, executive director of the Bitcoin Policy Institute and a former counsel to Sen. Cynthia Lummis, called the bill “a Digital Fort Knox” and a 20-year framework for coins already in federal hands. Bessent, facing the Senate Finance Committee in early June 2026 on the fiscal 2027 Treasury budget, would not pretend the buildout was simple.

We are proceeding with all deliberate speed, and we are making sure that as we are doing this in this complicated process, we use best practices and things will be durable for the future.

Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary, Senate Finance Committee, June 2026

He also called the reserve “new ground” and “new technology,” and told senators that economic security is national security. The House bill is the statutory version of that caution: freeze the coins, publish the keys, study the rest.

What Committee Passage Would Still Leave Open

A yes vote in Rayburn 2128 would still leave the hardest fights for later rooms. The bill does not settle how many coins sit in which agency wallet today, because the 60-day inventory happens only after enactment. It does not name a custodian bank, a multi-signature scheme, or a cold-storage site. It tells the secretary to consult Defense and Homeland Security on physical and cyber security and to use “commercially reasonable and technologically appropriate standards,” then leaves the blueprints to regulation.

It also leaves a fork problem that sounds technical and is not. If bitcoin splits, Treasury would hold both legs for 5 years, then keep the fork with the higher publicly traded market cap and could sell the rest into the general fund, unless the secretary argues a lesser token has “novel technological utility.” That is a political choice dressed as a market-cap test, and it would land on a future secretary, not on the members voting September 16.

Self-custody language in the bill is a shield, not a spending cut. It affirms that people may keep lawful control of their own keys. It does not stop criminal forfeiture, which is how the reserve gets its coins in the first place. Anyone reading the markup as a promise that Washington will stop seizing bitcoin is reading a different draft.

Auctions End Once the Coins Hit the Vault

The practical change is on the sell side. For years the United States turned large criminal bitcoin piles into dollars through U.S. Marshals Service auctions. The order in 2025 told Treasury to stop selling reserve coins. The House bill would make that stop a 20-year rule and would route future qualifying seizures into the same vault. Other seized tokens could still be sold, but the cash would be earmarked for more bitcoin or for debt reduction, not for a general spending offset that disappears into the forfeiture fund.

That is a real shift for anyone who priced bitcoin on the chance of another federal dump. It is not a new bid from the Exchange Stabilization Fund. It is the government choosing, for two decades, not to be a seller of the coins it already took in court.

Members can still amend the hold, the proof-of-reserve language, or Section 9 before they vote. They cannot, in this room, turn H.R. 8957 into the Lummis purchase schedule. If the committee sends the bill on, the next test is whether the House floor will accept a 20-year lock on seized coins without a funded buy, and whether the Senate will try to graft a 1 million-coin target onto a vault bill that was written to avoid one.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of a pending House committee markup and related Treasury policy. It is informational only and is not investment advice, tax advice, or legal advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold bitcoin or any other digital asset. Readers who are considering an investment, a custody arrangement, or a legal strategy tied to digital assets should consult a licensed financial adviser, tax professional, or attorney who can review their own facts. Holdings figures, bill text, and committee schedules reflect the public sources cited as of the dates in this article and can change if the committee amends the bill or if official counts are revised.