Ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th US president, speculation about a potential “America’s first strategic crypto reserve” is creating a stir in the cryptocurrency markets. A report by the New York Post claimed that Trump was “open” to the idea of a reserve that would include Bitcoin as well as altcoins such as Solana (SOL), Ripple’s XRP, and Circle’s USDC stablecoin.
Following the news, Solana (SOL) rose by over 8% to $217, XRP climbed to $3.35 to reach a new all-time high in 2018, and Hedera’s HBAR also rose by over 10% to reach its highest level since December, although it was not directly mentioned.
During his campaign, Trump promised to make the US a global leader in crypto, including by creating a national Bitcoin reserve. This aligns with legislative efforts such as Senator Cynthia Lummis’ proposed BITCOIN Act, which advocates for the US to own 5% of the total BTC supply. Several states have also sought legislation to create crypto reserves.
However, the idea of including altcoins in a national reserve has sparked controversy, with the New York Post reporting that Trump is open to diversifying the reserve to include U.S.-based innovation-related tokens like Solana and XRP.
Despite the market enthusiasm, industry experts are skeptical of the idea.
“This is a ridiculous idea and will never happen,” Quinn Thompson, founder of hedge fund Lekker Capital, wrote in an X post. He argued that the US government should not make speculative investments in altcoins: “The strategic reserve rumor for other non-BTC coins is another example of people taking a bad idea and using it as fact.”
Anthony Georgiades, general partner at Innovating Capital, expressed concerns about the potential centralization of blockchain economies. “While encouraging U.S.-based innovation is extremely positive, nationalizing digital assets could undermine efforts to decentralize these ecosystems,” Georgiades said.
He noted that Bitcoin remains the only coin that is “sufficiently and fully decentralized,” while other projects are still working toward similar levels of decentralization.
*This is not investment advice.
