Former White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt says President Donald Trump remains interested in buying Bitcoin for the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. As reported by Bitcoin.com News and summarized by TechFlow on November 11, 2026, Witt said on the What Bitcoin Did podcast that the idea has been discussed extensively—but that open-market purchases face serious legal obstacles.
A March 2025 executive order established the reserve using Bitcoin already seized by the government and directed the Treasury and Commerce departments to seek “budget-neutral” ways to acquire more. As of the original report, no such strategy had been made public, and no open-market purchase had been announced.
Witt questioned whether direct purchases would be legal without congressional authorization, given Congress’s control over federal spending. He also claimed that concerns about purchases had prompted Congress to add a provision to the National Defense Authorization Act barring them. The supplied report does not establish the provision’s status or text. Witt said efforts were underway to secure permission and authorization.
Making the reserve permanent presents a separate hurdle, Witt said: passing standalone legislation through a divided Congress would be extremely difficult. Without legislation, the reserve would remain dependent on an executive order that a future president could revoke. For now, the reported interest in buying Bitcoin is not an announced purchase or an authorized funding plan.
Original report: TechFlow · Published November 11, 2026, at 17:35 (UTC+8).