Philippines Congressman Proposes BTC Reserve to Attack National Debt

A bill proposed in the Philippine Congress would create a government-run bitcoin (BTC )reserve that cannot be touched for two decades except to pay down the nation’s rising debt load, setting some of the strictest sovereign crypto storage rules yet.

The proposed Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act, introduced by Rep. Miguel Luis R. Villafuerte, directs the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to purchase 2,000 BTC annually over five years for a total of 10,000 BTC.

“The State shall promote and maintain economic prowess, including monetary stability and the convertibility of the peso, especially in times of crisis. With the increasing role of cryptocurrency in the world’s financial system, it is imperative to enact measures aimed at diversifying our assets to ensure financial security,” the bill reads.

Villafuerte’s legislation stipulates that the holdings would be locked for 20 years, and during that period, bitcoin may only be sold or swapped for the purpose of retiring government debt. Once the holding period ends, the central bank governor would be restricted to offloading no more than 10% of the assets in any two-year window.

In January, the country’s Bureau of the Treasury reported that its national debt hit $285 billion, or 60% of its GDP.

Villafuerte wrote in the bill that he was inspired by commodity-style reserves such as the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve or Canada’s maple syrup stockpile.

To ensure resilience, the country’s central bank would establish geographically dispersed cold-storage facilities across the country, audited quarterly through public cryptographic attestations and verified by independent third parties.

The bill says that forks and airdropped assets must also be retained for at least five years, and stresses that private ownership of BTC will not be infringed, with promises that citizens’ crypto holdings would not be subject to confiscation.