Bo Hines, Donald Trump’s crypto chief, has a clever idea for boosting the government’s Bitcoin stash without spending extra taxpayer money. He’s suggesting using gold certificates.
Budget-Neutral Bitcoin Buying
The government’s new Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) has a strict rule: it can’t spend any new money. So, how do you buy more Bitcoin? Hines’s solution involves leveraging the difference in price between gold certificates and actual gold.
Gold certificates are government-issued, and they’re valued much lower than the actual gold they represent. This means the government could potentially sell these certificates, buy gold at the lower price, and then use the profit to purchase Bitcoin. It’s a way to acquire Bitcoin without directly spending new funds.
The Lummis Act and Gold Certificates
Senator Cynthia Lummis’s Bitcoin Act of 2025 provides a potential pathway for this strategy. The Act proposes transferring the Federal Reserve’s existing gold certificates to the Treasury, where they would be re-issued at their current market value. This would unlock significant profit potential.
Currently, a gold certificate is worth only $42.22 per troy ounce, while the actual gold is worth over $3,000 per ounce. That’s a huge difference!
More Ideas Needed!
Hines is open to other suggestions for growing the SBR, as long as they don’t cost taxpayers anything. He’s planning to set up a group to collect ideas from everyone. The goal is to build the reserve without increasing the national debt.
The US government already holds around 207,000 Bitcoins, mostly seized from criminals. This makes it the largest national Bitcoin holder in the world. But Hines wants to make it even bigger, using creative financial strategies.
