US House panel advances H.R. 8957 Bitcoin reserve bill with 20-year hold requirement

A House committee has advanced H.R. 8957, a bill that would place a 20-year minimum holding period on qualifying federal bitcoin and codify the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve in law.

The House Financial Services Committee voted 28-21 to report the measure, according to the committee’s event page. The legislation, titled the American Reserve Modernization Act, would require the Treasury to hold bitcoin acquired by the United States and deposited in the reserve for at least 20 years from enactment, according to the bill text linked from the committee page.

The committee action moves the bill forward in the House process, but it is not final passage. The legislation would still need approval from the full House, Senate passage and the president’s signature before becoming law.

What the committee vote would do to federal bitcoin holdings

Beyond the hold requirement, the bill would formalize the reserve structure in federal law rather than leaving it solely to executive policy. Reporting linked to the committee action also said the measure would impose annual reporting and audit requirements, although those details would still have to survive the rest of the legislative process.

The proposal has been framed around bitcoin already owned by the federal government and not required by law for another purpose. In practice, that means the bill is aimed at the treatment of qualifying government-held bitcoin rather than creating a new market instrument or changing private ownership rules.

The committee’s approval gives the measure a procedural step forward, but the broader outcome remains uncertain until the bill advances further in Congress. For now, the clearest change is that the proposal has cleared committee with language that would lock in a long federal holding period for reserve bitcoin.