Robert “Bo” Hines, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, said that if the move to sell some of the gold in Fort Knox to buy Bitcoin remained budget-neutral, it could be considered.
Hines made the remark while speaking to journalists Eleanor Terrett and Jacquelyn Melinek in an interview on March 21.
Note that President Trump signed an Executive Order on March 6 to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve consisting of BTC forfeited by federal agencies. The order also mentioned that the government will acquire any Bitcoin in the future through “budget-neutral” ways.
During the interview, Terrett asked Hines if he could give an example of a budget-neutral way to buy Bitcoin. In response, Hines referred to Senator Cynthia Lummis’s (R-WY) BITCOIN bill.
Senator Lummis’ bill, once legislated, will codify Trump’s executive order. The bill, said Hines, details how the government could re-evaluate the true value of certain gold certificates. If the government recognized its gains after the re-evaluation, it could use the additional funds to acquire more Bitcoin. “That would be a budget-neutral way to acquire more Bitcoin,” Hines said.
Terrett further asked if the government could “theoretically” sell some of the gold in Fort Knox to purchase Bitcoin. “Well, if it’s budget neutral and doesn’t cost the taxpayer a dime,” Hines said.
The Trump administration is open to “new ideas” and “innovative approaches” to crypto, he added.
Melinek questioned Hines about the government’s choice of the five assets, i.e., Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana, and Cardano, for the holdings. Hines said that the government chose these particular assets on the basis of their market capitalization.
As per the on-chain analytics platform Arkham, the US government holds 198,109 BTC worth $16.6 billion and 60,850 ETH worth $119 million as of March 21.
