The House Financial Services Committee voted 28-21 on Wednesday to advance the American Reserve Modernization Act, legislation that would convert President Trump’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve from an executive order into federal statute. It is the furthest a bitcoin reserve bill has traveled in Congress.

H.R. 8957 runs 19 pages and directs the Treasury Department to maintain a secure bitcoin storage facility, centralizing coins the federal government holds through criminal and civil forfeiture. It creates a separate digital asset stockpile for non-bitcoin holdings, mandates ongoing accounting and oversight, and holds reserve bitcoin for 20 years. The text also directs work on budget-neutral strategies for acquiring more bitcoin over five years.

Permanence is the part that matters to holders. Trump’s March 2025 order can be reversed by a future president with another order, while a statute would require another act of Congress. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told senators in June that the reserve was proceeding at “deliberate speed” with roughly 207,000 BTC, funded by seizures rather than open-market buying. Codification would not accelerate that, but it would take repeal off the table as a near-term risk.

Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., made the custody case during the markup, saying federal bitcoin should not be left to “languish in fragmented and inconsistent custody” and arguing the arrangement poses cybersecurity risks and fails to show what the government actually owns.

Rep. Nick Begich, R-Alaska, introduced the bill on May 21 with Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, as co-lead. Congressional records list 23 cosponsors, with Golden the only Democrat, and Wednesday’s 28-21 split tracked party lines more than the bipartisan label suggests. The measure descends from the BITCOIN Act that Begich and Sen. Cynthia Lummis introduced more than a year ago. It now goes to the House floor, where time is scarce: the chamber cancelled its final two weeks of September, and no companion bill has passed the Senate.

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