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The White House’s “Crypto Czar,” David Sacks, says the US government would own an extra $16.634 billion worth of Bitcoin if the Department of Justice (DOJ) had held onto its BTC.
Sacks notes the federal government has sold approximately 195,000 Bitcoin for $366 million, far less than it could have earned for the BTC today.
“If the government had held the Bitcoin, it would be worth over $17 billion today. That’s how much it has cost American taxpayers not to have a long-term strategy.”
The US government currently owns $17.05 billion worth of BTC, per data from the blockchain analytics firm Arkham.
Sacks previously served as PayPal’s chief operating officer (COO) and is a high-profile venture capitalist who has invested in Airbnb, Palantir, Postmates, Reddit, Slack, SpaceX, Twitter, Uber and other big-name tech companies.
The U.S. Marshals Service typically sells US government-seized Bitcoin in auctions.
On Sunday, President Donald Trump confirmed that the US will set up a “crypto strategic reserve” consisting of Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH), XRP, Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA).
BTC is trading at $87,104 at time of writing. The top-ranked crypto asset by market cap is down by nearly 8% in the past 24 hours but is up by more than 6.5% in the past week.
