David Bailey, a former crypto advisor to the Trump administration, believes that the US government could do more to support Bitcoin adoption.
“At the end of the day, it’s not enough to love Bitcoin,” Bailey said at the Bitcoin Investor Week conference in New York, posted on YouTube on Tuesday.
“The Trump administration was a very important first step, but you know there’s a lot more work for us to do, not just in talking, but in actual delivery,” said Bailey, who is now CEO and chairman of KindlyMD, a Bitcoin treasury company.
Bailey refers to the aborted Bitcoin strategic reserve plan
Trump has repeatedly expressed his support for Bitcoin (BTC) and the broader crypto industry during the presidential campaign.
While he signed an executive order for the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve in March 2025, it is clear that the US government has yet to begin collecting Bitcoin outside of funds seized through illegal activities.
“We’re sitting here a year after the Bitcoin strategic reserve was signed into law by the executive order,” Bailey said.
“When I checked, we don’t even know how many Bitcoins we have,” Bailey said. Data from Arkham Research shows that it currently holds 378,372 bitcoins, worth about $22.48 billion at the time of publication.
Just two months after Trump signed the executive order, White House AI and crypto king David Sachs said the collection process would not be so easy, explaining that the US could buy more bitcoin if the government financed the purchase in a “budget neutral” way, without taxes or adding to the growing national debt.
Industry participants have become more divided about the opportunity over the years. Some remained optimistic. Galaxy Digital’s head of global research, Alex Thorne, said in September that there is a “strong possibility” it could happen by the end of 2025.
Bailey said that while Trump was the first politician to support “our worldview,” an opinion alone is not enough to drive Bitcoin’s price to $1 million.
“Just because you like Bitcoin doesn’t mean you have the political capital invested in making things happen,” Bailey said.
“If you’re not willing to commit the political capital to mobilize the various levers necessary to move the ball forward, then at the end of the day you can love Bitcoin, you can’t love Bitcoin, you’ll get the same result.”
Bitcoin will succeed either way, Bailey says
However, even without US government action, Bailey said Bitcoin will eventually succeed. “It’s not like we need the government to help us make Bitcoin successful,” Bailey said.
“Four years from now, whether it’s 10 years from now, whether it’s 20 years from now, we’re going to get to the point where we actually have a government that promotes the regulations that Bitcoin needs to succeed,” he said.
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“I’m excited about what we can achieve in this administration. If we really want progress to continue, we need more people to own Bitcoin every year,” Bailey said.
“We need to get more Bitcoin voters every year. And then it’s inevitable,” he said.
According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin is currently trading at $68,220, down about 45% from its October high of $126,000.
Outside of bitcoin’s strategic reserve, bitcoiners are eyeing the potential passage of the US CLARITY Act, which aims to provide greater regulatory clarity to the industry. Trump said in a Truth Social message on Tuesday that “the US needs to get the market structure done as soon as possible.”
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