A Day One Trump Order: A Federal Stockpile of Bitcoin?

Two 50-page policy proposals presenting the plan in detail. Discussions on details with President-elect Donald J. Trump and his advisors. And discusses with the firm’s candidates how to pay for it.

On the eve of Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the cryptocurrency industry is pushing his new administration to execute a bold plan that would have seemed unimaginable just a year ago: a government program to buy and hold billions of dollars to Bitcoin.

During his election campaign last summer, Mr. Trump pledged to create a “federal Bitcoin stockpile” that would serve as a “permanent national asset for the benefit of all Americans.” Bitcoin enthusiasts have hailed the idea as potentially transformative, saying it would help reduce the national debt. Mr. Trump could still abandon this project, the details of which are under debate. But industry executives spent weeks lobbying to shape the proposal, raising hopes that Mr. Trump might act soon after taking office.

In recent days, crypto executives have offered input to David Sacks, a venture capitalist whom Mr. Trump appointed to oversee crypto and artificial intelligence, on a possible executive order covering several areas of crypto policy. said three people with knowledge of the matter. Bitcoin stock is part of those discussions, two of them said.

“This could be the initiative of day one,” said Pete Rizzo, editor-in-chief of Bitcoin Magazine, an industry news publication. “It’s certainly an idea that has come a long way in a short time.”

By some estimates, the United States has as much as $19 billion in Bitcoin that it has seized from criminals over time, a stash that the government recently decided to sell. Some crypto executives are calling on Mr. Trump to simply hold on to this Bitcoin, something he could most likely do with an executive order. Others advocate a more ambitious plan in which the government would acquire tens of billions of dollars in new Bitcoin, establishing a “strategic reserve” similar to federal stocks of gold and oil. This spending amount could require congressional approval.