According to Alex Thorn, Head of Firmwide Research at Galaxy Digital, the US government could begin purchasing Bitcoin in 2025 without breaching its current budget-neutral fiscal policy.
Under the current budget-neutral conditions, any plans to acquire Bitcoin must not impose incremental costs on American taxpayers.
Thorn made these comments in an interview on Bloomberg Crypto, where he spoke on different touchpoints in the crypto industry, including tariffs, the Bitcoin reserve, and ICOs, among others. He also reinforced this opinion in a post on X.
i now think the U.S. government could buy bitcoin this year for its strategic reserve, and the easiest (likeliest?) pathway would be to use alts from its digital assets stockpile — i explain here pic.twitter.com/EcPGWlHRJe
— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) April 20, 2025
Thorn sees US government acquiring Bitcoin
He predicted that the US goverment will buy Bitcoin for its reserve even though the conditions for the establishment of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The United States Digital Assets Stockpile prohibits the government from selling Bitcoin in the reserve and orders the secretaries of Treasury and Commerce to find budget-neutral ways to buy Bitcoin while simultaneously prohibiting them from buying altcoins.
Thorn believes that the government is making progress in its crypto adoption strategies, referencing the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who said that Bitcoin is becoming a store of value. According to Thorn, it seems plausible that the government will buy something.
Speaking on where he thinks the government will get the funds to buy Bitcoin, given that the Trump administration has been clear that it will not use taxpayer money to buy the digital asset, Thorn highlighted that budget neutrality isn’t practical. However, he added that the government could sell some of the altcoins in the sell-only digital assets stockpile for Bitcoin.
Thorn also highlighted that this can be done seamlessly, saying “one of the elegant ways is to take some altcoins or something in that stockpile, which, let’s be frank, the government and Congress barely even know that the government possesses. It’s not like some big pile of money everyone is aware of and wants a piece of. To be specific, you could sell an altcoin in an altcoin-btc pair and never touch cash at all, and no cash has to flow under the general treasury.”
There is growing confidence in Bitcoin acquisition expectations
Thorn’s comments in the recent Bloomberg interview represent a notable departure from his own forecast in the Galaxy research team’s report titled “Cryptocurrency & Bitcoin Predictions for 2025,” which was released on December 31, 2024.
In the report, Thorn said, “The US government will not purchase Bitcoin in 2025, but it will create a stockpile using coins it already holds, and there will be some movement within the departments and agencies to examine an expanded Bitcoin reserve policy.”
watch the whole hit from last week on bloomberg tv @business https://t.co/JzhLvUQyVU
— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) April 20, 2025
The recent momentum may be driven by political will. President Donald Trump’s administration has taken a notably pro-crypto stance, with Trump pledging to make the United States the “crypto capital of the world.” His executive order establishing the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve has further strengthened the federal government’s positioning around digital assets and also boosted investor confidence and the recent relative market stability of Bitcoin.
For Thorn, the government can achieve some of its goals in the executive order through asset reallocations rather than new spending, allowing it to remain within existing budget frameworks.
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