Development of national reserves in crypto-assets

Nowadays, some countries institutionalize cryptocurrency as a protective asset, while others see it as a risk to financial stability.

The US experience

In 2025, the US was the first to enshrine Bitcoin as an untouchable Treasury asset, designating the digital currency as the new “forte” alongside gold.

In March 2025, the president signed executive order creating the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve and the US Digital Asset Reserve, the first executive order in the world to make confiscated digital assets an element of government reserves. The order directs the Treasury Department to establish segregated reserves for Bitcoin and other crypto-assets, grant these assets a “reserve asset” status, and require all federal agencies to consolidate holdings into a single Treasury-managed¹ account.

In May 2025, the US Treasury completed the initial consolidation: all BTC seized in extortion, fraud, etc. cases were shifted to Treasury-administered accounts for safekeeping. Required to publish an annual report on reserves. The general principle is “the government does not sell BTC and builds a longterm position”.

The experience of Switzerland

In April 2025, the Federal Gazette published information about an initiative proposing that the National Bank (SNB) allocates a portion of its foreign exchange reserves to Bitcoin alongside traditional assets. The initiative has 18 months to collect 100,000 signatures. If the signatures are collected, the issue will be put to a national referendum: citizens will directly decide whether to set a new² share of the reserves.

The Swiss National Bank revealed in its annual report that it is already modeling “extreme scenarios” for new assets. The bank's experts are testing what would happen to returns and risks if Bitcoin were to rise sharply in price, collapse, or start “walking” in time with technology stocks. The goal is to see if such volatility would undermine the Bank's ability to stabilize the franc and pursue an independent monetary policy. The Bank emphasizes that it is willing to consider new assets, but only if the overall portfolio remains sound and does not jeopardize the country's macroeconomic³ stability.

The experience of the Czech

Republic

In January 2025, the Czech National Bank’s Council approved a proposal to form a “test Bitcoin portfolio” within the structure of assets held by the Bank for foreign exchange interventions, servicing the government's external obligations. The Council approved the move “to analyze the risks and potential of the alternative asset,” instructing the reserves management department to prepare a calculation of limits and custody procedures by⁴ October 2025. Pending the study results, the Czech National Bank retains its current strategy (euro, dollar, gold), but states its intention to “keep up with trends in reserve management” and assess Bitcoin as a “possible protective asset in the long term”.

The experience of El Salvador

El Salvador's Bitcoin service (Bitcoin⁵ Office) has a “1 BTC per day” policy, launched in November 2024: the government's wallet buys one Bitcoin daily at market price. This approach was adopted because after Bitcoin was recognized as the country's second official currency in 2021, El Salvador made Bitcoin purchases in large blocks, buying approximately $85.5 mn worth of the cryptocurrency between September 2021 and January 2022. In 2022, the value of El Salvador's Bitcoin holdings declined by approximately $40 mn due to Bitcoin's depreciation. In November 2024, President Bukele ordered the daily purchase of 1 Bitcoin in order to build a national reserve in Bitcoin and minimize bad timing of purchases. On May 30, 2025, the public tracker bitcoin.gob.sv recorded an accumulated balance of 6,181 Bitcoin (about $640 mn). The balance is labeled its “Strategic⁶ Bitcoin Reserve,” an asset that is not for sale.

Russia’s experience

In Russia, the issue of creating a reserve in crypto-assets has been discussed since the end of 2024. The Ministry of Finance did not support the idea, citing the high volatility of private tokens and the lack of a legal procedure⁷ for their accounting in budget reporting.

According to the Bank of Russia, the formation of reserves in cryptocurrencies stimulates payments with the latter among citizens and companies. The more payments are made in such assets, the weaker the usual levers of financial regulators work: changes in the key rate, restrictions on capital withdrawal, and support for the exchange rates of national currencies. In addition, the volatility of cryptocurrencies can damage banks and payment systems if they are linked to such assets through customers. Therefore, the regulator sees “national bitcoin reserves” as an external threat: such reserves increase the volatility of global markets and may undermine the ability of countries with a high degree of cryptocurrency adoption in the financial system⁸ to manage their own monetary policy.

From the monitoring issue No. 5 (17), May 2025. Download the full issue (PDF) · issue page at the Gaidar Institute