Crypto assets got a major boost after President Trump over the weekend announced a new US strategic reserve of digital assets.
While Bitcoin dipped by roughly 4% on Monday after surging by 20% a day earlier, stocks of major US crypto firms soared on bets that the Trump administration is poised to execute an aggressively pro-crypto agenda in the months ahead.
The commander-in-chief said on Sunday that he plans to stockpile a basket of coins that include Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Solana, and Cardano ahead of the first-ever White House crypto summit Friday.
“Obviously, BTC and ETH, as other valuable Cryptocurrencies, will be at the heart of the Reserve,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I will make sure the US is the Crypto Capital of the World.”
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value, dipped by nearly 4% to just over $90,000 earlier this morning, while Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, fell by 9% to just over $2,200.
Investor Joe Lonsdale, the co-founder of Palantir and a close associate of Elon Musk, questioned the move.
“It’s wrong to steal my money for grift on the left; it’s also wrong to tax me for crypto bro schemes,” Lonsdale wrote on X.
However, stocks of top US crypto firms were up in Monday morning trading in New York on the back of Trump’s announcement.
Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy and the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, rose 12% while crypto miners Riot Platforms and MARA Holdings, jumped 7% and 9%, respectively.
Findings by CoinGecko, a digital asset data and analysis firm, found that the overall cryptocurrency market was up by about 10%, or more than $300 billion, in the hours since Trump’s announcement.
James Butterfill, head of research at asset manager CoinShares, said the idea “suggests a more patriotic stance toward the broader crypto technology space, with little regard for the fundamental qualities of these assets.”
Trump was a one-time crypto critic, calling Bitcoin a “scam” against the dollar in June 2021 before making a U-turn during the 2024 campaign.
The President and First Lady Melania Trump even launched their tokens before their return to the White House.
But his new administration is set to take a lighter touch approach to regulating digital assets. Trump is hosting the first-ever White House crypto summit this Friday.
Digital asset investors have also been buoyed by his pick to run the Securities and Exchange Commission: pro-crypto lawyer Paul Atkins.
Many in the industry were unhappy with the previous administration’s SEC chair, Gary Gensler, who launched a string of lawsuits against crypto firms.
Kraken said earlier on Monday that the federal regulator had agreed to drop a Gensler-backed case brought in November 2023.
It accused the company of acting as a broker, dealer, and exchange without registering with the SEC.
Just last week, the financial watchdog agreed to toss a similar complaint against Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the US.
