Nineteen White House officials own between $875,000 and $2.35 million in the crypto assets President Trump proposed holding in a national reserve, according to CREW’s analysis of nearly 120 executive branch financial disclosures.

While cryptocurrencies can be extremely volatile, the government holding these assets in reserve could legitimize what is currently viewed as a risky asset class. In a scenario where increased institutional buy-in results in rising values, White House officials who own the assets in question could profit from the impacts of the reserve plan.

In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order establishing the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and United States Digital Asset Stockpile. Days before issuing the order, President Trump described his plans for the digital asset stockpile in a series of posts on Truth Social, announcing his intention to create a “U.S. Crypto Reserve” that includes Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP (the native cryptocurrency on the Ripple blockchain) and Cardano (ADA). The final order created two separate reserve bodies, one that holds Bitcoin and a second for other tokens.

Notably, Trump himself has a business relationship with Solana, having launched the $TRUMP memecoin on the Solana blockchain prior to his inauguration in January 2025. According to data from blockchain analysis firm Arkham Intelligence, he also holds a small amount of Ethereum valued at about $15,000, though that is not included in this analysis. Overall, Trump’s crypto projects are thought to have brought in hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family since election day in 2024.  

Nineteen White House employees reported holding at least one of the crypto assets proposed by President Trump to be included in the government’s digital asset holdings. Sixteen staffers held Bitcoin, making it the most popular crypto asset among those found in CREW’s analysis. Three staffers also disclosed ownership of shares in Bitcoin ETFs, which allow investors to gain exposure to fluctuations in the value of Bitcoin without holding the token itself. Bitcoin and Bitcoin ETFs make up between $818,019 and $2,020,000, the bulk of the total holdings. Other tokens, including Ethereum, account for an additional $57,015 to $330,000 in assets held by White House staff. One staffer, Special Assistant to the President for Communications Ian Kelley, owned each of the assets named by President Trump in his Truth Social posts.

“White House officials who own the assets in question could profit from the impacts of the reserve plan.”

Incoming White House officials are required to file financial disclosures known as new entrant reports. These forms, available through the White House, cover the period from the beginning of 2024 to the date the report was filed, and provide a look into officials’ holdings as they entered the administration. All of the employees included in the analysis are still employed at the White House as of July 1, 2025. The Office of Government Ethics has not certified all of the disclosures yet, so the information in some could change. Based on a review of transaction reports available through OGE, there is no record of any of these holdings being divested, but it is possible that some or all of the officials are in the process of divesting.

Assets like gold and oil have long been held in reserve by the federal government, but Trump’s order marks the first time that a similar strategy will be adopted for cryptocurrency. The federal government already holds Bitcoin and other digital assets acquired through civil and criminal asset forfeiture. Historically, those assets have been sold through auctions—the government does not buy cryptocurrencies. The order states that holding Bitcoin in reserve rather than auctioning the assets will “maximize BTC’s strategic position as a unique store of value in the global financial system.”

According to a fact sheet on the executive order issued by the White House, the Treasury and Commerce Departments are“authorized to develop budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional Bitcoin, provided that those strategies impose no incremental costs on American taxpayers,” although the nature of those strategies remains an open question. The fact sheet does not include any such stipulation for the Digital Asset Stockpile. It appears that the composition of the stockpile will be determined primarily by which digital assets have been seized by the government.

Even in the absence of direct government purchases in the open market, the creation of federal cryptocurrency reserves represents a further integration of cryptocurrencies into the global financial system. Since the institutional legitimization of crypto could feasibly boost the value of those assets over time, staffers holding Bitcoin and other assets acquired by the government stand to benefit from this policy shift.

Neither President Trump’s comments nor the language of the executive order clarify whether there was an underlying strategy for selecting the specific tokens proposed to be held in the stockpile. Several of the named assets—Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP—are currently ranked among the top five cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, while others are ranked lower (Solana is sixth; Cardano is tenth). The president’s Truth Social posts suggested that the Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, announced as a way to “support the responsible growth and use of digital assets, blockchain technology, and related technologies,” plays a role in advising on the reserve strategy.

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