A House committee advanced the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve bill by a 28-21 party-line vote on Sept. 16, moving the government's existing Bitcoin holdings toward a 20-year lockup. The measure does not authorize new purchases, and Bitcoin fell roughly 3.3% on the day of the vote.
The House Financial Services Committee voted 28-21 to advance the American Reserve Modernization Act, known as ARMA. The bill would write into law the reserve that President Donald Trump created with an executive order in March 2025, and it would lock roughly 328,000 BTC held in U.S. government wallets in place for 20 years with annual audited reports.
ARMA locks coins, but does not buy them
At around $84,000 a coin, the government's holdings amount to roughly $27.6 billion. Yet ARMA does not send the Treasury to the market. Direct purchases would instead be assessed in a 180-day study. The bill's May draft would have let the Treasury buy up to a million coins over five years, but that proposal was removed before the amended version reached the House floor.
Crypto prices move when buyers show up, and this bill sends none. Bitcoin still fell roughly 3.3% on the day of the committee vote, though it ended the week down just 0.5%, tracking the S&P 500.
The government's stash is a small slice of the market
Bitcoin's total market cap sat around $1.68 trillion on Sept. 24, meaning the locked-up government coins represent about 1.6% of the total supply. That supply was already sitting idle: the 2025 executive order had already halted the auctioning of seized coins, so ARMA mainly makes that pause harder to reverse.
Several hurdles remain before ARMA becomes law
The bill still needs a House floor vote, Senate passage, and a presidential signature. Only one of its 23 cosponsors, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, is a Democrat, and he does not sit on the Financial Services Committee. Most Senate legislation needs 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, but Republicans hold only 53 seats, and the bill expires if it isn't signed before the new Congress convenes in January.
Money flows into Bitcoin ETFs, Federal interest rate policy, and the strength of the U.S. dollar matter more to Bitcoin's price than ARMA's fate.
Source: Motley Fool
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