A morning soundbite from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent briefly rattled Bitcoin and crypto markets on Thursday before a late-day clarification restored the policy baseline: the United States won’t be sellers, and “budget-neutral” options to grow the country’s bitcoin stockpile remain on the table. Senator Cynthia Lummis swiftly framed the endpoint. “America needs the BITCOIN Act,” she wrote, calling the legislation the operative blueprint for expanding a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve without tapping taxpayers.

In a Fox Business hit that ricocheted across X, Bessent said the government is “not going to be buying” additional bitcoin and added, “We’re going to stop selling that,” referencing a reserve he valued between $15 billion and $20 billion. Markets faded into the statement; by mid-day, bitcoin was off roughly 3.7%. The point that stuck—“we’re not going to be buying”—was clipped and shared widely, but it was only half the story.

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Hours later, Bessent posted a clarifying note. “Bitcoin that has been finally forfeited to the federal government will be the foundation of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve that President Trump established in his March Executive Order,” he wrote. “In addition, Treasury is committed to exploring budget-neutral pathways to acquire more Bitcoin to expand the reserve, and to execute on the President’s promise to make the United States the ‘Bitcoin superpower of the world.’” The course correction aligned his comments with the administration’s March directive and the policy discussion that has matured since.

Bitcoin Act Is Still The Way Forward

Lummis, chair of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Digital Assets, seized the moment to underline the fiscal constraint. “Secretary Scott Bessent is right: a budget-neutral path to building SBR is the way. We cannot save our country from $37T debt by purchasing more bitcoin, but we can revalue gold reserves to today’s prices & transfer the increase in value to build SBR. America needs the BITCOIN Act.” In a separate reply to Bessent, she added: “I have a ₿ill for that.”

Her posts also flagged ongoing work “with Scott Bessent & Howard Lutnick to identify budget-neutral ways to continue growing our bitcoin reserve & outpacing adversaries in the race.”

The legal and administrative scaffolding for a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve was set five months ago. On March 6, President Trump signed an executive order creating the SBR and a separate US Digital Asset Stockpile, directing agencies to capitalize the reserve with Bitcoin “finally forfeited” to the government and to develop budget-neutral strategies for further acquisition.

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Lummis’s “BITCOIN Act” would take that framework from executive policy to statute and goes considerably further. The latest text lays out a five-year purchase program authorizing up to 200,000 BTC per year—1,000,000 BTC in total—paired with a 20-year minimum holding period and a quarterly, public cryptographic proof-of-reserves regime.

Where Bessent’s remarks intersect—and diverge—with that legislative ambition is gold. In March, he downplayed a formal revaluation of US gold as a credible budget lever, even as the broader policy conversation around the asset side of the federal balance sheet intensified. On Thursday, Bessent told Fox Business that a gold revaluation is “unlikely.” Lummis, by contrast, is explicitly proposing to mark gold to market in order to seed the SBR without new borrowing—an idea that has migrated from think-piece fodder to bill text but still faces macro, legal, and central-bank-independence scrutiny.

The bottom line is that Thursday did not mark a policy reversal so much as a restatement of sequencing. The executive branch will build the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve first with finally forfeited coins and, per Bessent’s clarification, is actively evaluating budget-neutral ways to expand it.

At press time, BTC traded at $118,751.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi revealed that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) will not bring criminal charges against the crypto venture firm, as Tornado Cash co‑founder Roman Storm’s federal trial in Manhattan neared its conclusion.

Qureshi, whose investment firm backed several blockchain startups, wrote on social media that federal prosecutor Nathan Rehn told the court July 28 that neither Dragonfly nor its principals were targets of the department’s investigation.

He called the public clarification “unprecedented” and “a clear violation of DOJ policy,” citing the Justice Department’s usual practice of keeping target information confidential. The development comes days after Qureshi publicly denounced the DOJ over targeting the firm for backing Tornado Cash in 2020 as part of Storm’s trial.

Storm, who co‑founded Tornado Cash in 2019 as an open‑source protocol to anonymize cryptocurrency transactions, is charged with laundering more than $1 billion and violating U.S. sanctions against North Korea’s Lazarus Group.

The trial, which began July 14 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, has heard testimony from blockchain tracing experts and former Tornado Cash users. Closing arguments are expected later this week.

Tornado Cash was added to the U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions list in August 2022, marking the first time a software protocol faced such action. Prosecutors allege Storm personally approved transactions for illicit actors, while defense attorneys argue that the protocol’s code, not its creator, should be judged.

Dragonfly invested in Tornado Cash in 2020 after obtaining an outside legal opinion that the mixer complied with U.S. anti‑money‑laundering guidance issued by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

The outcome of Storm’s case could reshape how open‑source developers are held accountable for user activity. If convicted, Storm faces up to 45 years in prison, a sentence that critics warn could chill innovation in privacy‑enhancing tools.

Qureshi wrote:

“With that behind us, the focus should remain on Roman Storm’s trial, which is now nearing closing arguments as soon as this week. Its outcome will have massive implications for open-source software and privacy rights in America.”

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Sujha Sundararajan

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Sujha Sundararajan

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Sujha has been recognised as Women In Crypto 2024 by BeInCrypto for her leadership in crypto journalism.

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June 13, 2025

Solana non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Solsniper announced Friday that it is shutting down its 3.5 years of operation, including delisting NFTs and removing bids.

The platform will close on June 13, 2025, at 12 PM PST, the post on X, noted.

“We will be automatically delisting everyone’s NFTs from Sniper Marketplace, removing bids, and refunding bid/order balances to your wallets.”

The NFT team said that it will retain rewards leaderboard data for use in future incentive programs. “We don’t plan to stop building anytime soon,” it said.

Solsniper first started as an analytics tool for NFT traders, later expanding to a mobile app, an NFT aggregator, and an NFT marketplace.

Only NFT Products Are Shutting Down: Solsniper Clarifies

In a follow-up post, the platform CEO and founder clarified to users that the platform isn’t wholly shutting down.

“In case anyone was confused. We are NOT shutting down as a company, simply shutting down all of our NFT-related products,” he wrote.

Solsniper noted that it failed to “sustainably run” the NFT marketplace, assuring users that any refund would return to their wallet.

Besides, the CEO further touted that Solsniper has already launched a Telegram trading bot, web trading terminal, and AI trading assistant for memecoins.

The shutdown is unlikely to shake Solana’s core, but cause a short-term NFT trading volume dip, since power users scramble for alternatives.

NFT Trading Volumes Decline

In April, two major NFT marketplaces – Bybit and X2Y2 – announced that they are shutting down, citing a decline in NFT interests and trading volume. Bybit said that it is shutting down in an effort “to streamline our offerings.”

Shortly before closing, Bybit suffered a major security breach, losing nearly $1.5 billion to North Korean hackers. Previous NFT marketplace exits caused short-lived dips but didn’t dent overall growth.

Meanwhile, DappRadar data suggested that the trading volumes of NFTs tumbled 63% since December 2024.

“While NFTs had been showing signs of a comeback in recent months, their momentum has slowed since the start of the year,” DappRadar analyst Sara Gherghelas, said.