Bitcoin reserve bill advances 28-21, with zero bipartisan votes

The House Financial Services Committee advanced the American Reserve Modernization Act on Wednesday by 28 votes to 21, Decrypt reports. The bill is co-led by a Republican and a Democrat. Not one Democrat on the committee voted for it.

“Sold, swapped, auctioned, encumbered, or otherwise disposed of for any purpose.”

— American Reserve Modernization Act, Text advanced by the House Financial Services Committee, 16 September 2026

From the bill's text, on what may happen to bitcoin once it enters the reserve, for twenty years

Bitcoin reserve bill: what it does

The mechanics, in three lines:

• The vote was 28 to 21. All 28 in favour were Republicans and all 21 against were Democrats.
• Treasury would get 180 days to stand up the reserve, so until roughly 15 March 2027.
• Every federal agency would have 60 days to account for its holdings, so until roughly 15 November.

The lock is the part that makes this different from a policy statement. Once bitcoin enters the reserve it cannot be sold, swapped, auctioned or encumbered for two decades, which takes the commitment past 2046 and past the next four presidential terms. The bill also creates a separate Digital Asset Stockpile for everything that is not bitcoin.

What sits inside that lock is already substantial. The United States holds roughly 328,372 BTC, worth about $25.0 billion at this morning's $76,224 and equal to 1.65% of all coins that will ever exist, public trackers show. Almost none of it was bought. It arrived through seizures, the Silk Road and Bitfinex cases among them, which is why an inventory deadline appears in the text at all.

The votes that are missing

Now the arithmetic that decides whether any of this matters. The committee gave the bill 57.1% support. The Senate needs 60 of 100 votes to end debate, and Republicans hold 53 seats there, so perfect party unity still falls seven short. On Tuesday the CLARITY Act died in the Senate at 50 votes, ten short of the same threshold, after months of negotiation aimed at buying Democratic support. This bill has advanced without buying any.

Sponsorship and votes are separate things, and the gap between them is the news here. Nick Begich and Jared Golden put their names on the bill together. Bryan Steil's substitute, adopted by voice vote, narrowed the text from the version Begich introduced in May, which is usually the move that widens support. It did not.

Markets treated it as the procedural step it is. Bitcoin trades at $76,224, flat on the day, the morning after the Federal Reserve's first hike since 2023 moved it 1.99% in its two-hour window. Corporate treasuries, meanwhile, bought 5,900 BTC in three months, 78% of it from a single company. A federal reserve that cannot sell would be a genuinely new kind of holder in that picture, and it is several votes away from existing.

Informational material, not investment advice. The bill has cleared one committee and is not law.