Bitcoin drops below $119K after US Treasury secretary rules out new BTC buys

Bitcoin dropped below a key support level Thursday after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the government had no plans to make additional purchases of Bitcoin for its Bitcoin and digital asset reserve.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell below the $120,000 psychological support level and traded at $118,730 at the time of writing, Cointelegraph data showed.

BTC/USD, 1-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph

The decline followed Bessent’s comments in an interview with Fox Business, where he confirmed the government would not buy more Bitcoin.

“We’ve also started to get into the 21st century, a Bitcoin reserve. We’re not going to be buying that, but we are going to use confiscated assets and continue to build that up,” Bessent said.

Scott Bessent interview. Source: Foxbusiness.com

The statement contrasted with President Donald Trump’s earlier executive order directing the government to develop “budget-neutral strategies” for increasing Bitcoin holdings.

In April, Bo Hines, who at the time was a part of the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets, said the administration was exploring funding options for Bitcoin acquisitions, including tariff revenue and a reevaluation of the Treasury’s gold certificates.

Thursday’s drop came just hours after Bitcoin briefly overtook Google’s $2.4 trillion market capitalization to become the fifth-largest global asset, before optimism faded on the Treasury’s stance.

Related: Bitcoin’s corporate boom raises ‘Fort Knox’ nationalization concerns

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.