Proposed 'Keep Your Coins Act' Blocks Federal Agencies From Limiting Personal Crypto Use and Self-Custody

The “Keep Your Coins Act of 2025” is a short, punchy piece of legislation aimed squarely at protecting how individuals use digital assets like Bitcoin or other convertible virtual currencies (CVCs). Essentially, it tells federal agencies to back off when it comes to regulating how regular people spend their crypto or where they keep it.

The Right to Spend Your Digital Cash

Section 2 of the bill is the core of the action. It explicitly prohibits any federal agency head from blocking, limiting, or making it harder for an individual to use their CVC for personal purchases. If you want to buy a coffee or a new video game using crypto—whether directly or by converting its equivalent value—the government can’t stop you. This is a big deal because it enshrines the right to use digital money as a medium of exchange without federal gatekeepers. For digital natives who see crypto as just another payment rail, this provision offers a clear legal shield against future regulatory efforts that might try to restrict its utility.

Self-Custody: The Digital Safe Deposit Box

The second major protection involves the right to self-custody. The bill ensures that a “Covered User”—defined as anyone who gets CVC to buy goods or services for themselves—can keep their digital assets in a “Self-Hosted Wallet” and use it for any legal transaction. A self-hosted wallet is basically a digital tool where you hold the keys, meaning you don't rely on a third-party service like a major exchange to store or manage your funds. This provision protects the autonomy of users who prefer to manage their own digital finances, much like keeping cash in a physical wallet instead of only using a bank account. It’s about maintaining independent control over your money.

What This Means for Everyday Life

If this bill passes, it clarifies that federal agencies cannot force you to use regulated intermediaries or report every small transaction just because you’re using crypto. For example, if you are a freelancer who gets paid in CVC and you want to use a fraction of that to pay for groceries using your personal, self-hosted wallet, no federal agency can step in and say, “You can’t do that,” or mandate that you must use a specific, compliant service. The intent is to foster financial freedom and privacy for individuals in the digital asset space.

The Unintended Regulatory Squeeze

While the bill champions individual liberty, it does raise some immediate questions for regulators. By broadly prohibiting federal agencies from “blocking, limiting, or otherwise making it harder” to use CVC, the bill ties the hands of agencies responsible for anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF). Currently, much of the regulatory oversight happens through third-party exchanges and custodians. If everyone shifts to self-hosted wallets—which the bill protects—and federal agencies can’t require certain reporting or checks on those transactions, it creates a potential blind spot. This isn't about stopping crime (the bill only protects legal transactions), but it could make it significantly harder for law enforcement to track bad actors who use CVCs, as their primary tools for tracking often rely on the cooperation of regulated financial institutions. The challenge here is balancing individual financial privacy with the government's need to prevent illicit finance.