Crypto czar David Sacks laments US government's previous management of bitcoin holdings

Ahead of Friday's crypto summit at the White House, newly-minted AI and crypto czar David Sacks took to social media to express his dismay with how the United States' government has handled its crypto holdings.

"Over the past decade, the federal government sold approximately 195,000 bitcoin for proceeds of $366 million," Sacks wrote Thursday in a post on X . "If the government had held the bitcoin, it would be worth over $17 billion today. That’s how much it has cost American taxpayers not to have a long-term strategy."

The U.S. government possesses 198,109 BTC, worth nearly $18 billion at the current market price, according to Bitcoin Treasuries .

President Donald Trump will address leaders from the crypto industry at Friday's event, less than a week removed from his push for a working group to move forward on a "Crypto Strategic Reserve." Alongside BTC and ETH, the president said the reserve would include XRP, SOL and ADA. Industry experts questioned the inclusion of XRP and ADA, arguing they lack the developer activity and decentralization seen in Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Sacks came under some fire after Trump's Sunday announcement for a possible conflict of interest, as the crypto czar was known to have held positions in several cryptocurrencies. He confirmed on X that he sold his crypto holdings before joining Trump's team. "Correct. I sold all my cryptocurrency (including BTC, ETH, and SOL) before the start of the administration," Sacks wrote in a post on X.

Meanwhile, President Trump appears to be interested in a strategic reserve that is solely focused on Bitcoin, according to a report from The Pavlovic. "A bitcoin strategic reserve is something the President's interested in," U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told the outlet . "He spoke about it all during the campaign trail, and I think you're going to see it executed on Friday. So bitcoin is one thing, and then the other currencies, the other crypto tokens, I think, will be treated differently — positively, but differently."

The price of bitcoin trades around $91,000 at publication time, according to The Block's BTC price data .