House Committee Advances Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Bill 28 to 21

On September 16, the House Financial Services Committee voted 28 to 21 to advance the American Reserve Modernization Act, known as ARMA (H.R. 8957). The bill would turn the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, which President Trump created by executive order in March 2025, into federal law. All 28 votes in favor came from Republicans. All 21 votes against came from Democrats.

The vote came one day after the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act, the market structure bill, in a 49 to 50 cloture vote. Our analysis of that vote argued that the fight in the Senate was about ethics rules and bank deposits, not about Bitcoin.

What happened in the committee

Rep. Nick Begich (R-Alaska) introduced ARMA on May 21, 2026. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine is the only Democrat among its cosponsors. At the markup, the committee first replaced the introduced text with an amendment in the nature of a substitute from Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wisconsin), adopted by voice vote. The vote on the amended bill is recorded as FC-317.

Committee Chairman French Hill (R-Arkansas) called ARMA "a common-sense measure that brings digital assets held across federal agencies under Treasury custody and consistent oversight."

Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-California) offered an amendment that would have barred the president, the vice president, members of Congress and their families from holding controlling stakes in digital assets and from receiving compensation for selling, marketing or mining them. It failed 21 to 28, recorded as FC-316, along the same party line as the final vote.

What the revised bill does

The Steil substitute changes the introduced bill in several places:

• Scope. "Qualifying bitcoin" now covers all bitcoin held by the federal government that is not required by law for another purpose. The introduced text covered only bitcoin finally forfeited in criminal or civil proceedings.
• Holding period. Reserve bitcoin must be held for 20 years, counted from the date the law is enacted rather than from each deposit. During that time it may not be sold, swapped, auctioned, encumbered or otherwise disposed of.
• Early sales. The Treasury must deliver a study within one year on possible conditions for early sales, with legislative recommendations. The study itself does not permit any sale.
• Two pools. Bitcoin goes into the reserve. Other digital assets go into a separate Digital Asset Stockpile. Proceeds from selling stockpile assets first pay for managing both pools, and anything above those costs goes toward reducing the national debt.
• Transparency. The Treasury must publish an annual proof of reserves, verified by an independent third-party auditor, with continuing oversight by the Comptroller General. The introduced text required quarterly reports.
• Forks and airdrops. Assets received through forks or airdrops must be held for one year before disposal, down from five.
• Self-custody. The introduced text affirmed the right to buy, hold and transfer bitcoin and called self-custody of private keys fundamental. The revised text restates this as a sense of Congress, a declaration that expresses the view of Congress without creating an enforceable right. The reference to financial sovereignty, privacy and personal liberty remains.

The deadlines are short. Federal agencies would have 60 days to account for their holdings, and the Treasury 180 days to establish the reserve. Within one year it would have to set up a program under which states can store their own bitcoin in segregated accounts inside the reserve.

What the bill does not do

ARMA does not authorize the purchase of bitcoin. Section 9 requires the Treasury and Commerce Departments to study, within 180 days, the risks, costs and benefits of acquiring more. The pathways it names are budget-neutral: selling non-bitcoin assets from the stockpile, forfeitures and penalties, and cooperation with states, private companies or international partners.

The bill rules out borrowing, new federal debt and new taxes as a source of funding, and it bars pledging bitcoin or other assets as collateral. The introduced version had also listed discretionary remittances from the Federal Reserve Banks as a funding source, and it carried a gold certificate revaluation offset and tariff revenue. The substitute removed all three.

How much bitcoin the reserve would hold

Nobody can say with confidence. Estimates from March 2025 put federal holdings at about 198,000 BTC, with one widely cited tracker at 198,109. By July 2026, Arkham Intelligence counted about 324,000 BTC and BitcoinTreasuries.net 328,372. The gap between the lowest and highest figure is 130,263 BTC.

The Treasury has not published the accounting that the March 2025 executive order called for. Two large positions explain much of the uncertainty. More than 94,000 BTC recovered from the 2016 Bitfinex hack remain tied up in restitution litigation. The civil forfeiture complaint against Chen Zhi of the Prince Group names about 127,271 BTC but had no final judgment when last reported.

For scale, our own count of state holdings from early September put twelve governments at 650,008 BTC combined. The introduced bill's findings compared bitcoin to gold as a reserve asset. How the two compare as stores of value is covered in our knowledge section.

The tax bill that cleared the same day

The House Ways and Means Committee advanced the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act (H.R. 10357) by 38 to 5 on the same day. Chairman Jason Smith (R-Missouri) had introduced it on September 14. It is a separate bill and not part of ARMA. According to the description published by the Joint Committee on Taxation, its main provisions are:

• Fees. Paying network or transaction fees of up to 10 dollars with a digital asset would no longer trigger a gain or loss, for dispositions after December 31, 2027. Dealers, brokers and taxpayers with more than 5,000 digital asset transactions in the preceding year are excluded.
• Stablecoins. A qualified US dollar stablecoin would be treated as bought and sold at its redemption value, as long as the price stays between 99.5 and 100.5 percent of that value. This applies from 2027. How dollar stablecoins work under US law is the subject of an earlier analysis.
• Mining and staking. Rewards are ordinary income, taxed when received, from 2028. The bill contains no option to defer taxation until the rewards are sold.
• Wash sales. The 30-day wash-sale rule, which disallows a loss when the same asset is bought back, would extend to digital assets for dispositions after the bill's introduction.
• Other rules. A mark-to-market election for traders and dealers, securities lending treatment for digital asset loans, and simpler appraisal rules for donations.

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the bill raises 500 million dollars in net revenue from 2027 to 2036. The fee exemption costs 2.365 billion dollars over that period, while the wash-sale extension brings in 1.707 billion. Industry groups including the Crypto Council for Innovation welcomed the vote but pointed to two gaps: there is no broader exemption for small everyday payments, and staking rewards are still taxed on receipt.

What comes next

Both bills now need a vote on the House floor, passage by the Senate and the president's signature. The House left for recess after September 17. No Senate companion to ARMA has advanced so far.

The midterm elections take place on November 3. The 119th Congress ends on January 3, 2027, and any bill not enacted by then has to be introduced again in the next Congress.