Cryptocurrencies fell Thursday night after President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a strategic bitcoin reserve for the United States and, separately, a “digital asset stockpile.”
The price of bitcoin was last lower by 3% at $87,586.86, according to Coin Metrics. Shortly after the news broke, it fell to as low as $84,688.13.
Earlier losses in other coins – specifically those that rallied at the beginning of the week after Trump said they would be included in the strategy – also eased. Ether was down 2%, trading at $2,184.08. XRP and Solana’s SOL token retreated 1% and 3%, respectively. Cardano’s ADA token tumbled 13%.
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White House crypto and AI czar David Sacks detailed in a post on X that the bitcoin reserve will include bitcoin already owned by the U.S. government that it seized from past law enforcement actions – a move, he emphasized, that will “not cost taxpayers a dime.” The U.S. currently owns more than 198,000 bitcoins worth about $17 billion, according to Arkham.
The stockpile of other coins will include “digital assets other than bitcoin forfeited in criminal or civil proceedings.” Sacks said the government will not acquire additional assets for it “beyond those obtained through forfeiture proceedings.” Arkham data shows the U.S. government owns about 56 ether tokens worth almost $119 million. It does not list XRP or the Solana or Cardano tokens.
Investors initially dumped their coins at the notion of the U.S. having no immediate planned purchases of bitcoin, per the order, against the backdrop of major weakness in equities.
“It is good news, but not what the market wanted in the short term,” said Steven Lubka, head of private clients and family offices at Swan Bitcoin. “People were hoping for near-term buy pressure.”
Sacks did point out that the Secretaries of Treasury and Commerce are authorized to develop “budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin, provided that those strategies have no incremental costs on American taxpayers,” and that there’s no plan to accumulate additional assets for the crypto stockpile beyond what’s already been obtained by the government.
The announcement came days after Trump teased new details on the highly anticipated bitcoin reserve that had become one of his biggest promises to the crypto industry on his campaign trail, and on the eve of the first White House Crypto Summit.
The crypto market has been rocked this week by the tariff war and inflation concerns, which have largely overshadowed the speculative excitement around the bitcoin reserve. JPMorgan on Wednesday said it doesn’t expect a big move higher in crypto in the near term, given the broader economic uncertainty and weakening demand.
Bitcoin briefly returned to the key $90,000 level earlier this week and is now hovering just below it. Investors and analysts have warned that until bitcoin can meaningfully hold above it, it’s at risk of a bigger pullback toward $70,000.
