 
 
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ruined the dreams of Bitcoin adherents worldwide Thursday, declaring outright that the federal government had no plans to acquire more Bitcoin for its planned strategic reserve.
The price of Bitcoin dropped below the psychologically important $120,000 level and changed hands at $117,763 at press time, less than 24 hours after registering a new record high of $124,128 on Thursday, CoinGecko data shows.
No New BTC Buys
The latest Bitcoin price correction followed Bessent’s remarks in an interview with Fox Business, where he asserted that the United States government would not purchase more Bitcoin.
Describing the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve as the U.S. “starting to get into the 21st Century,” Bessent did assert that the current confiscated assets would continue to be held, with no BTC liquidated. He noted that seizures in the future could add to the government’s stash.
“We’re not going to be buying that, but are going to use confiscated assets and continue to build that up. We’re going to stop selling that,” he told interviewer Maria Bartiromo.
 
The Treasury Secretary added he estimates the U.S. government’s current Bitcoin holdings to be between $15 billion and $20 billion in value at current prices.
Bessent’s remarks mark a deviation from previous comments by White House officials on the matter since President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a separate Digital Asset stockpile. The Bitcoin reserve would consist of approximately 198,022 BTC already owned by the federal government that was forfeited as part of criminal or civil proceedings.
Trump also directed Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to come up with budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional Bitcoin at no extra costs to American taxpayers.
For months, Trump officials have floated the possibility of the federal government scooping up more Bitcoin. The possibility has excited many Bitcoiners, both owing to the legitimacy such purchases could give the alpha cryptocurrency and the potential deflationary effect enormous state-level buys of BTC could have on its price.
Today, the market is bloodied following Bessent’s comments and hotter-than-expected PPI inflation data. Bitcoin, the industry’s largest and oldest crypto by market cap, quickly sank by over 3% to as low as $117,640 at one point.
The July Producer Price Index (PPI) rose 0.9%, rising past estimates for 0.2% and 0.0% in June.
Ether (ETH) tumbled 4% to $4,544 after a recent meteoric surge that helped the second-most valuable crypto close in on new all-time highs. Other recently red-hot alternative cryptocurrencies, including Ripple’s XRP and Solana (SOL), were also in the red on Thursday.
Source: https://zycrypto.com/bitcoin-drops-to-117k-after-us-treasury-secretary-bessent-says-government-wont-buy-btc-for-strategic-reserve/