Unpacking Trump’s crypto reserve reveal 

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You know by now that crypto prices saw a lift after Donald Trump’s crypto reserve announcement on Sunday. By early Monday, they’d retreated.

The president listed assets to be included in the stockpile (BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP and SOL) in his post, but did not give any sort of timeline. 

So-called crypto czar David Sacks added: “More to come at the Summit.”

Bitcoin surged roughly 10% on Sunday to about $95,000. At this morning’s market open, it was at about $93,100. By 2 pm ET: $87,300.

Not all were thrilled about the possible inclusion of assets beyond bitcoin (i.e. Brian Armstrong, Nic Carter, Bitwise execs). Check out this piece from Blockworks’ Donovan Choy.

Trump’s reveal was a sign of how quickly a pro-crypto regime can get the market to turn, noted eToro market analyst Josh Gilbert.

“However, the concerns from last week remain unchanged from a macro perspective, and clearly, the market is willing to overlook that for now,” he said. 

“Macro perspective” here means all that inflation and monetary policy stuff. Then there’re the tariffs on Canada and Mexico imports set to hit tomorrow — and a new investigation into lumber imports. 

Macro headwinds and the Bybit hack drove BTC briefly below $80,000 last week. But Trump’s vested interests in the space signal “sell-offs of this nature could continue to be supported moving forward,” Gilbert added. 

Some theorized we’d see a further lift in BTC price Monday as investors sought to pile into bitcoin ETFs after Trump’s weekend message. Those don’t trade 24/7, after all.

Though we won’t know the Monday inflow tally for a bit, volumes for BlackRock iShares Trust (IBIT), as of 2 pm ET, weren’t exactly atypical. 

As we wait for more US crypto reserve details, we’ve seen movement from a number of US states. Sen. Cynthia Lummis said last week she expects one of them to have a BTC reserve before the federal government.

Those comments from the Wyoming Republican came before Trump’s post. Still, the sheer number of state-level proposals signals she could be right.

Though such efforts are effectively dead (at least for now) in five states — Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota — 19 others have live proposals, according to Bitcoin Laws data.

A Utah proposal passed the House last month and is working its way through the Senate. Similar planned reserves expect to be soon voted on in the Oklahoma House and the Texas Senate.  

Lummis had, prior to the election, proposed a federal reserve. That was for BTC specifically, and included specifics (a holding period of at least 20 years, funding from revaluing the Fed’s existing gold certificates, etc.), noted S&P Global’s Andrew O’Neill.

“Yesterday’s proposal lacks details on size, timing and whether it will be managed by the Federal Reserve or another new or existing entity,” O’Neill added.

Trump speaking without reserve (see what I did there?) is typical. We’ll see what more we learn on Friday and how Congress could choose to act.

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