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In an interview with Bitcoin commentator Natalie Brunell, Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) reaffirmed her commitment to establishing a US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR), disclosing that the Treasury Department is probing its legal authority to purchase and custody BTC on behalf of the federal government. The senator believes such a move could significantly reduce the national debt over the long term.

Senator Lummis Pushes Bitcoin Reserve

Lummis pointed to roughly 200,000 BTC in the US Marshals Service’s asset forfeiture program as a possible starting point: “Working with Treasury, and the Treasury Secretary, we’re trying to find out which assets among those could become the basis of the first year’s investment in a strategic Bitcoin reserve.”

Further clarifying her stance, the senator noted she is determining whether a new law is required or if the administration already has the authority: “What I’m trying to figure out right now is whether it needs to be done legislatively or whether the Treasury Secretary has the authority to do it right now.”

Lummis proposes converting the seized BTC into an official “base investment,” which she says would be the foundation of a larger BTC reserve. If successful, this would mark the first time the US government deliberately and openly accumulated Bitcoin as a strategic asset.

One of Lummis’ main arguments for a SBR is its capacity to trim the federal debt, which she deems “irresponsibly high.” Under her Bitcoin Act, the US could also revalue its gold certificates—currently listed at a decades-old official price of $42 per ounce, far below market value—and deploy the difference toward purchasing BTC in a budget neutral way:

“My legislation would provide that we could take our gold certificates… bring them up to current fair market value for gold and then use that to buy Bitcoin, thereby creating a 1 million Bitcoin reserve over five years.”

She contends that holding this million BTC over a 20-year horizon could “cut the current national debt in half.” Citing extensive modeling—some from advocates like Michael Saylor—she believes the price appreciation of BTC has the potential to deliver significant gains to taxpayers.

New Episode Out Now! 🇺🇸

U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis is leading the Bitcoin Revolution in Washington.

Her bold plans for America through Bitcoin & digital asset policy promise to reshape the financial system—reduce U.S. debt, protect Bitcoin self-custody, and reinforce dollar… pic.twitter.com/G1Rvl1ORDb

— Natalie Brunell ⚡️ (@natbrunell) April 1, 2025

The senator lauded President Trump’s recent executive orders that aim to make the United States “the digital asset capital of the world” by fostering a favorable environment for BTC mining, regulatory clarity, and a strategic reserve. According to Lummis, those moves stand in stark contrast to prior administrations, where “people neither knew nor wanted to talk about digital assets.”

However, Lummis also underscored the need for bipartisan collaboration, suggesting that while Bitcoin has now garnered interest in Republican circles, it should not become a strictly partisan endeavor: “We want to keep that momentum… We worked extremely hard to keep it bipartisan, so I can’t flip my brain and start to think of it as a partisan issue.”

At press time, BTC traded at $84,202.

Featured image from YouTube, chart from TradingView.com

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Bitcoin ETFs (exchange-traded funds) continue to record negative flows this week as President Trump’s Liberation Day countdown continues.

Sentiment is cautious across crypto markets, with traders and investors adopting a wait-and-see approach.

Bitcoin ETF See Outflows Amid Investor Caution

Data on Farside Investors shows two consecutive days of net outflows for Bitcoin ETFs since Monday. Financial instruments from Bitwise (BITB), Ark Invest (ARKB), and WisdomTree (BTCW) were in the frontline for Monday’s $60.6 million outflows, with only BlackRock’s IBIT seeing positive flows.

Meanwhile, Tuesday saw even more outflows, approaching $158 million, with Bitwise and Ark Invest leading the charge. Then, on April 1, BlackRock’s IBIT recorded zero flows. Meanwhile, Ethereum ETFs recorded net outflows of $3.6 million, data on Farside shows. This suggests a cautious sentiment among institutional investors.

“The Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $157.8 million outflow yesterday. The Spot Ethereum ETFs saw a $3.6 million outflow. Institutions are reducing risk ahead of today’s tariff announcement,” analyst Crypto Rover noted.

Indeed, sentiment suggests traders are exercising caution, choosing to remain in “wait-and-see” mode. The caution comes ahead of Trump’s Liberation Day announcement, which is due later in the day on April 2.

With POTUS poised to unveil sweeping new tariffs, traders and investors across financial playing fields wait to see the scope of an onslaught that could spark a global trade war. Specifically, there is generally very little information about the tariffs’ specifics, which creates uncertainty regarding their impact on the broader economy and the crypto market. 

“The White House has not reached a firm decision on their tariff plan,” Bloomberg reported, citing people close to the matter.

Despite the lack of clarity, it is understandable why investors would be cautious considering the impact of previous tariff announcements on Bitcoin price. Meanwhile, analysts predict extreme market volatility, with potential stock and crypto crashes reaching 10-15% if Trump enforces broad tariffs.

“April 2nd is similar to election night. It is the biggest event of the year by an order of magnitude. 10x more important than any FOMC, which is a lot. And anything can happen,” economic analyst Alex Krüger predicted.

While sentiment is cautious in the crypto market, some investors are channeling toward gold as a safe haven. A Bank of America survey showed that 58% of fund managers prefer gold as a trade war safe haven, while only 3% back Bitcoin.

These findings came as institutional investors cite Bitcoin’s volatility and limited crisis-time liquidity as key barriers to its safe-haven adoption. Trade tensions have historically driven capital into safe-haven assets.

With Trump’s Liberation Day announcement looming, investors preemptively position themselves again, favoring gold over Bitcoin.

Nevertheless, despite Bitcoin’s struggle to capture institutional safe-haven flows, its long-term narrative remains intact. This is seen with Bitcoin supply on exchanges dropping to just 7.53%, the lowest since February 2018.

When an asset’s supply on exchanges reduces, investors are unwilling to sell, suggesting strong long-term holder confidence.

Bitcoin may be a useful hedge against inflation in the near future as market uncertainty is growing. In the long run, it may also be useful to envision Bitcoin differently, treating it as a barometer for the tech industry.

Standard Chartered’s Head of Digital Assets Research and WeFi’s Head of Growth both shared exclusive comments with BeInCrypto regarding this topic.

Bitcoin: Inflation Hedge or Magnificent 7 Candidate?

Since the early days of the crypto space, investors have been using it as a hedge against inflation. However, it’s only recently that institutional investors are beginning to treat it the same way. According to Geoff Kendrick, Head of Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered, the trend of Bitcoin as an inflation hedge is increasing.

Still, this view may be too narrow in a few ways. Since the Bitcoin ETFs were first approved, BTC has been increasingly well-integrated with traditional finance. Kendrick noted this, saying that it is highly correlated with the NASDAQ in the short term. He claimed that Bitcoin might represent more than an inflation hedge, instead serving as an ersatz tech stock:

“BTC may be better viewed as a tech stock than as a hedge against TradFi issues. If we create a hypothetical index where we add BTC to the ‘Magnificent 7’ tech stocks, and remove Tesla, We find that our index, ‘Mag 7B’, has both higher returns and lower volatility than Mag 7,” Kendrick said in an exclusive interview with BeInCrypto.

This comparison is particularly apt for a few reasons. Tesla’s stock price is heavily entangled with Bitcoin, but it’s also been dropping due to political controversies. If Bitcoin were to replace Tesla’s position in the Magnificent 7, it may be a welcome addition. Of course, there is currently no mechanism to cleanly treat Bitcoin as a similar type of product. That could change.

However, Bitcoin’s role as an inflation hedge might be more immediately relevant. As Trump’s Liberation Day approaches, the crypto markets are becoming increasingly nervous about new US tariffs. As Agne Linge, Head of Growth at WeFi, said in an exclusive interview, these fears are impacting all risk-on assets, Bitcoin included.

“Crypto markets are closely tracking investor sentiment ahead of Trump’s…tariff announcement, with growing concerns over the potential economic impact. Bitcoin’s increasing correlation with traditional markets has amplified its exposure to broader macroeconomic trends, making it more sensitive to the risk-off sentiment that has affected equity markets,” Linge claimed.

She went on to state that US economic uncertainty was at record levels, surpassing both the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic in April 2020. In these circumstances, recent inflation indicators are showing expected rates above expectations.

In such an environment, the crypto market is sure to take a hit, but traditional finance and the dollar is also in great jeopardy. All that is to say, Bitcoin is likely to be a solid inflation hedge in the near future. Even if it falls dramatically, it has worldwide appeal and the ability to rebound.