America’s Bitcoin stockpile may not stay the same size for long, but one crypto bill has to come first. Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee, said expansion of the U.S. Strategic Bi
America’s Bitcoin stockpile may not stay the same size for long, but one crypto bill has to come first.
Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee, said expansion of the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve "could come very soon" once lawmakers put major parts of the CLARITY Act in place. He made the comments in an interview with Bitcoin Magazine on Oct. 28.
The CLARITY Act is a crypto market structure bill that sets out which federal regulator oversees which digital assets and requires crypto exchanges and brokers to register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Related: Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller reveals his next investment
"The United States has about 200,000 Bitcoin right now that have been confiscated for various reasons," Hagerty said.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 telling the government to hold that Bitcoin as a reserve instead of selling it.
Hagerty said the reasoning was simple. "Bitcoin is finite," he said, and the administration wants "to be early in this process and see that reserve go up."
He described two goals behind the move.
One was what the president saw as a smart financial play. The second, Hagerty said, matters more: "to demonstrate support for a new innovative industry."
He estimated the holdings are worth approximately $16 billion at current prices.
Growing the reserve comes with a key limit. Hagerty said neither the executive order nor the proposed legislation allows the government to increase the federal deficit to buy more Bitcoin.
"So it has to be done on a deficit neutral basis if we were to grow the reserve," he said. Deficit-neutral means any purchases would have to be offset elsewhere in the budget rather than paid for with new borrowing.
He added that the reserve can still grow in value as Bitcoin’s price rises.
Hagerty credited Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming, for her work on reserve legislation.
He noted that she will leave the Senate after this cycle, but said the framework she built “can certainly exist as we move forward.”
The Tennessee senator described the reserve as part of a "continuum" of crypto policy. The CLARITY Act sits ahead of it.
"The timeline, a little bit hard for me to say right now because my priorities would be Clarity Act and the components of that first," Hagerty said. "But I think this is something that could come very soon after that."
Getting the CLARITY Act over the line has proved difficult.
The House passed the bill 294–134 in July 2025. In the Senate, a September vote to open debate fell short, 49–50, well below the 60 votes needed.
Any bill that doesn’t pass before the current Congress ends on Jan. 3 next year expires and lawmakers would have to start over.
The fight has turned increasingly partisan.
On Oct. 28, Lummis wrote on X that Democrats had wanted crypto brokers to be required to get customers the best available prices on every trade.
“The Clarity Act requires it,” she wrote. “Democrats voted against making sure Americans get a fair price.”
Hagerty said lawmakers would “get back to work” on the bill, calling its necessity “clear to all of us.”
Bitcoin price on October 29 at press time. Source: DecibelBitcoin traded near $80,913 at the time of writing, about 36% below its record of $126,080, set on Oct. 6, 2025.
Related: Bitcoin warning: Billionaire says dollar holders could be left behind
