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When Rep. Matt Van Epps helped lead the American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026 this week, he framed the invoice not as an summary nationwide safety measure — however as a direct extension of what he sees taking place in his personal yard.
“Nashville is without doubt one of the nation’s main Bitcoin hubs,” Van Epps mentioned in an announcement to Bitcoin Journal, pointing to Bitcoin Park, the town’s rising digital asset group, and the annual Bitcoin convention, set to return to Nashville in 2027.
“Nashville is shortly rising as one of many nation’s main Bitcoin hubs, with a rising digital asset group, establishments like Bitcoin Park, and the annual Bitcoin convention, which is scheduled to come back again to Nashville in 2027,” Van Epps mentioned. “Supporting this invoice means supporting the monetary innovation going down in my district.”
For the freshman congressman from Tennessee’s seventh District — a West Level graduate and fight helicopter pilot who gained his seat in a December 2025 particular election — that is private. The invoice is, in his telling, an announcement about what his district already represents.
Van Epps co-led the laws alongside Rep. Nick Begich (R-AK), who launched the American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026, often called ARMA. The invoice would codify President Trump’s March 2025 govt order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve — giving it the power of statute slightly than leaving it to the discretion of future administrations.
The reserve would sit contained in the U.S. Division of the Treasury and maintain BTC seized by way of federal legislation enforcement forfeitures and civil penalties.
Van Epps’ central argument for the laws is fiscal. “With a nationwide debt of $39 trillion, that is an important piece of laws,” he mentioned. Underneath ARMA, any future sale of Bitcoin from the reserve can be permitted for just one function: decreasing the nationwide debt. No transfers to different authorities applications, no discretionary spending — simply debt discount. The reserve, he pressured, “can be established with out price to American taxpayers”.
The invoice additionally attracts a agency line on property rights. Van Epps and Begich included language affirming that the federal authorities can not intrude with a person’s proper to personal, switch, or self-custody digital property — a provision that displays the libertarian undertow operating by way of a lot of the pro-Bitcoin caucus in Congress.
Van Epps: Bitcoin can repair some issues within the U.S.
For Van Epps, the argument goes past portfolio administration. He described the reserve as one thing with the potential to “clear up main issues” for the nation, with the nationwide debt chief amongst them. Bitcoin’s fastened provide and its appreciation over time, in his view, give the US a software that gold certificates and conventional reserves can not match.
The invoice requires BTC within the reserve to be held for no less than 20 years — a provision designed to take the asset out of short-term political calculations and deal with it as a generational stability sheet determination.
Quarterly public Proof of Reserve studies and impartial third-party audits would accompany the reserve, including a layer of statutory transparency that the prevailing govt order lacks.
Eighteen unique co-sponsors signed on, stretching throughout 9 states. The Senate stays the more durable terrain — competing crypto laws is transferring by way of committee there, and the trail to 60 votes is unclear.
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