President Donald Trump is set to announce a significant shift in crypto policy, including plans for a crypto strategic reserve, at Friday’s White House crypto summit, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick reportedly said.
While bitcoin (BTC) is expected to receive special status, Lutnick mentioned that other coins will also be positively regarded.
However, the market appears to be pricing in minimal expectations for altcoins, as evidenced by the lackluster price movements of XRP, SOL, and ADA—the coins Trump identified on Sunday as part of the reserve.
BTC has bounced to $91,000 to trade 4.5% short of Sunday’s high of over $95,000 brought by Trump’s announcement of the crypto reserve. XRP, however, trades at $2.57, or 17% short of the Sunday high of $3.02, according to data source TradingView. Cardano’s ADA and Solana’s SOL are short 27% and 20% from their respective highs on Sunday.
The lag in these tokens compared to BTC indicates that investors do not anticipate Trump will assign a significant role to them in the strategic reserve. Perhaps, Trump’s initial mention of these tokens was bait to secure the BTC reserve, as observers told CoinDesk early this week.
Besides, some observers believe a BTC-only reserve too will take time to materialize.
“These two things—the U.S. wanting a BSR while the IMF actively blocks sovereign BTC accumulation—cannot be true at the same time. So while we can continue the domestic political theater around BSR (which I support, since everything has to start somewhere), the real signal to watch is the IMF. When that changes, you’ll know readiness is near. This is a long-term catalyst. Until then, everything else is noise,” Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise Asset Management, said on X.
Park added that the crypto community needs to temper its expectations on the strategic reserve.
