Five Coins Make the Cut for Trump’s Crypto Strategic Reserve

“I also love Bitcoin and Ethereum!”

POTUS Donald Trump shouted his crypto love from the rooftops — aka his Truth Social platform — on Sunday after specifying the five cryptocurrencies he plans to include in the nation’s new strategic crypto reserve. 

Trump said XRP, Solana, and Cardano will be stored in a national reserve, while bitcoin and ether, the top two cryptos by market cap, will make up “the heart” of the fund. 

The crypto industry has been at the edge of its seat for months waiting for an announcement like this, after Trump promised a national crypto stockpile on the campaign trail as part of his plan to make the US “the crypto capital of the planet.”

The price of all five coins popped following Trump’s post, with bitcoin mostly recovering from its slump last week to top $94K. But with uncertainty around how Trump’s reserve will be put into action, crypto prices cooled off yesterday.

Saying the Magic Word

Trump’s post is the first time he’s said he would create a “reserve,” rather than a “stockpile.” The key difference: Governments are expected to buy assets to regularly bulk up reserves while they simply set aside and save assets they already own in stockpiles. 

Trump said at a crypto conference this summer that he’ll start a national bitcoin stockpile using the more than 200,000 bitcoins the US government already owns. FYI: The US has more bitcoin, which it obtained through confiscation from cybercriminals, than any other country, and it periodically sells off its hoard.

Saving Uncle Sam’s stash is one thing, but actively buying crypto for a reserve is another: 

• If and when the US buys crypto, it’s likely to boost the prices of the coins it buys and the wider crypto market. 
• Critics are concerned this halo effect will enrich President Trump, who launched memecoins for himself and Melania Trump last month, and his political squad — like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who has ties to Tether, and Department of Government Efficiency mastermind Elon Musk, whose company Tesla owns nearly 12,000 bitcoin.

Divided We Stand: The crypto community is of two minds, with supporters hoping a reserve will solidify crypto’s global importance while boosting the US’s bottom line and critics saying that a national reserve will put too much crypto in government hands. Cryptocurrencies’ whole shtick is that they’re “decentralized,” so concentrating too much of them into a centralized government’s coffers could conflict with their original goals. Investors are hoping for more details Friday, when the White House will host its first-ever crypto summit.