The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Is Closer Than Ever to Being Signed Into Law. Is Bitcoin About to Soar in Value?

In Schoolhouse Rock, a little cartoon bill sat on the Capitol steps, hoping to become a law someday. That classic cartoon carries a sobering lesson: "It's not easy to become a law, is it?" Most bills never even make it off the marble steps.

Which brings me to the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

President Donald Trump created the reserve with an executive order in March 2025. That's a temporary measure that the next president might cancel. So Congress is trying to write the reserve into actual law. On Sept. 16, the House Financial Services Committee voted 28-21 to advance the American Reserve Modernization Act, or ARMA for short. That's the paper trying to scale the Capitol steps right now.

If the reserve becomes law, will Bitcoin's (CRYPTO: BTC) price automatically soar? A close reading of the bill suggests the answer is no.

The reserve is a vault, not a shopping cart

ARMA mostly concerns tracking stuff the government already has. Blockchain analytics firm Arkham counts about 328,000 BTC in U.S. government wallets, mostly drawn from a handful of large seizures. At around $84,000 a coin, that's roughly $27.6 billion.

The bill would lock qualifying coins in place for 20 years and require annual audited reports. And depending on how coins from the recent LuBian seizure are classified, the amount actually bound for the reserve could be smaller.

It doesn't authorize the government to buy any Bitcoin. Direct purchases would be assessed in a 180-day study. Crypto prices go up when buyers show up, and ARMA doesn't send any Bitcoin buyers to the market.

When ARMA was introduced in May, the first draft included the Treasury buying as much as a million coins in five years. The amended version heading to the House floor removed this Bitcoin-buying proposal.

The overstated sell-off risk

Okay, but locking up $27.6 billion of Bitcoin takes supply off the market, right?

Well, sort of. The 2025 executive order already told the government to stop auctioning off seized coins. So the "government dump" scenario has been off the table for about 18 months. ARMA just makes the temporary order harder to reverse.

And the pile isn't that big. Bitcoin's total market cap sits around $1.68 trillion on Sept. 24. The government's stash is about 1.6% of the whole thing, and it was already sitting still anyway.

So Bitcoin fell roughly 3.3% on the day of the committee vote. In Bitcoin terms, that's an ordinary Wednesday. In a broader view, it was down 0.5% that week, closely tracking the S&P 500.

Image source: Getty Images.

The civics lesson

As the Schoolhouse Rock clip explains, a committee vote is the first of several hurdles. ARMA still needs a House floor vote, Senate passage, and a presidential signature.

The bill is labeled "bipartisan," but it's complicated. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine is the only Democrat among the bill's 23 cosponsors, he does not sit on the Financial Services Committee, and the committee vote fell along party lines. Most Senate legislation needs 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. Republicans hold only 53 seats, and the bill will expire if it isn't signed before the new Congress convenes in January.

So what would move Bitcoin, then?

Crypto investors should look at money flows into Bitcoin ETFs, Federal interest rate policy, the strength of the U.S. dollar against global currencies, and the bull-versus-bear market mood this month. None of that depends on ARMA.

Bitcoin could soar soon. It wouldn't be the first time. But if it does, this bill wouldn't deserve the credit.

Anders Bylund has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.