TradingView’s Benzinga report says Patrick Witt told the What Bitcoin Did podcast that the Trump administration remains interested in expanding the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. But the legal position is more limited than that headline implies: White House and GovInfo material provided ties the reserve to Executive Order 14233, issued in March 2025, and characterizes further acquisitions only as a budget-neutral strategy to be developed—not as a confirmed program for open-market purchases.

What Executive Order 14233 Actually Created

The reported legal basis for the reserve is Executive Order 14233. A GovInfo excerpt identifies the order and states that it was published in the Federal Register on March 11, 2025. In a White House fact-sheet excerpt, the administration said the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve would be funded with Bitcoin already held by the Treasury after being forfeited in criminal or civil asset-forfeiture proceedings.

The same White House excerpt says the secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce may develop strategies to acquire additional Bitcoin, provided those strategies are budget neutral and create no added cost for taxpayers. Put differently, the framework appears to establish a reserve initially backed by Bitcoin already held by the government, while making any expansion subject to funding and legal constraints.

Can the U.S. Government Buy More Bitcoin Now?

Based on the evidence provided, the clearest conclusion is that the administration remains interested in acquiring more Bitcoin, but no publicly confirmed legal pathway for direct open-market purchases has been established. The Benzinga report says Witt warned that outright market purchases face legal uncertainty because Congress controls federal spending.

This distinction matters because an executive-order framework is not the same as a direct buying mandate. The White House excerpt supports the development of strategies subject to a budget-neutrality condition, but it does not show that the Treasury or Commerce Department has received an implemented mechanism to purchase Bitcoin on the market. The supplied material also does not establish that such purchases are already under way.

The flash goes further, stating that Congress imposed restrictions in the National Defense Authorization Act that prohibit direct purchases. However, the provided material only confirms that the FY2026 NDAA exists as Public Law 119-60; it does not include an examined section of enacted text showing a Bitcoin-purchase ban, its agency scope, or how it would apply to the reserve. That claim should therefore be treated as unverified in this event, rather than as an established statutory fact.

For readers asking whether the federal government can legally buy more Bitcoin now, the current position appears to be a constrained executive program: the reserve seems to exist, agencies may examine options to expand it, but the evidence provided does not confirm clear, current authority for direct market purchases.

What Could Change the Legal Status Next

The next meaningful step would be a formal document that converts interest into authority. That could take the form of a Treasury or Commerce plan explaining how a budget-neutral acquisition would work, clearer appropriations authority or a legal opinion supporting direct purchases, or legislation codifying the reserve and setting out statutory purchase powers.

Until then, the reserve remains more a matter of structure than execution. Executive Order 14233 appears to have created the policy framework and custody base, but the evidence provided does not show that Washington has moved from holding forfeited Bitcoin to operating a confirmed sovereign BTC-buying program.