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2026/10/15 09:37
Is the US blocking Bitcoin for 20 years against a backdrop of over $40 trillion in debt?
Bitcoin, the Bitcoin Reserve, the dollar and US national debt now find themselves within a single global financial framework that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago. On 16 September 2026, the US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services approved Bill H.R. 8957 – the American Reserve Modernisation Act – to freeze a reserve of 324,000 BTC ($25 billion) for 20 years.
The United States is building up a strategic reserve of BTC at precisely the moment when the federal debt has exceeded $40.047 trillion for the first time. Of this amount, approximately $32.27 trillion is owed to public creditors, with a further $7.78 trillion comprising intra-governmental liabilities. However, this does not mean that Washington has found a way to repay the country’s debts using cryptocurrency. On the contrary, the US authorities are effectively accumulating an asset that cannot be sold quickly.
The Congressional Budget Office forecasts a federal budget deficit of $1.97 trillion for the 2026 financial year. According to forecasts, the debt held by public creditors is set to rise from 101 per cent of GDP in 2026 to 120 per cent in 2036, and by 2056 this figure could exceed 175 per cent of GDP.
Washington on Bitcoin: 20 years without the right to sell
Although the US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services has approved the American Reserve Modernisation Act, the bill is not yet law and must undergo further legislative proceedings.
The bill provides for the creation of a formal Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, with a minimum 20-year holding period for the cryptocurrency, during which it cannot be sold, exchanged, auctioned or used as collateral. The legislative initiative is based on the idea of centralising and storing, for the long term, BTC already under state control – amounting to approximately 324,000 confiscated bitcoins.
The $40 trillion problem and the US’s financial trajectory
US debt is already so large that even high interest rates are becoming a separate budgetary risk, whilst rising yields on long-term Treasury bonds are causing investors concern about US fiscal policy. In August, yields on 30-year Treasuries rose to 5.34 per cent.
Against the backdrop of the US budget deficit and rising debt servicing costs, the Bitcoin Reserve appears to be an attempt to create a long-term state-backed digital asset.
Does this pose a threat to the dollar?
It is still too early to talk of the dollar’s collapse due to Bitcoin. The US remains the issuer of the world’s reserve currency, and the BTC reserve itself does not abolish the dollar system. However, it is already clear that Washington no longer regards Bitcoin solely as a private speculative asset – the government is reclassifying it as a strategic reserve.
This suggests that, in the future financial system, this scarce digital asset will hold strategic value even as US debt continues to rise.
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