Trump's bitcoin stockpile plan faces setback as Supreme Court passes on Silk Road case

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would not hear a case about who owns more than $4.3 billion in bitcoin tied to Silk Road, the now-defunct online black marketplace created by Ross Ulbricht in 2011. The move paves the way for the federal government to potentially sell the bitcoin, which may impact former president Donald Trump’s campaign promise to build a national bitcoin stockpile.

"I am announcing that if I am elected, it will be the policy of my administration, the United States of America, to keep 100% of all the bitcoin the U.S. government currently holds or acquires into the future,” Trump said earlier this year at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville.

It's highly likely that the U.S. government will now sell its 69,370 bitcoin holdings, dampening Trump's plan to hold on to a large portion of the cryptocurrency seized from criminals. Although this is not the entirety of the government's stash – the government is purported to possess 1% of all bitcoin in circulation – it is still a significant volume. There are also concerns that crypto markets may see bitcoin prices drop if there is a rapid sell-off.

During this year’s Libertarian National Convention, Trump also pledged to free Silk Road founder Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole by the Justice Department for his role in the Silk Road marketplace, which ran primarily on bitcoin. The promise to “Free Ross” has long been an unrealized dream of the largely libertarian bitcoin community, which views the government’s enforcement actions against Ulbricht as disproportionate and overly harsh. Last week, Trump posted in all-caps that he would “SAVE ROSS ULBRICHT!” The Silk Road founder has been in prison for 12 years.

During the summer, the U.S. government transferred more than $2 billion in crypto seized from the Silk Road project, just 48 hours after Trump unveiled his plan not to sell bitcoin held by the government.