Donald Trump Announces a 'Crypto Strategic Reserve' Containing XRP, SOL, and ADA

Donald Trump's announcement of a 'Crypto Strategic Reserve' containing some prominent altcoins sparked a major (albeit extremely temporary) token price rally

A U.S. Crypto Strategic Reserve will elevate this critical industry after years of corrupt attacks by the Biden Administration, which is why my Executive Order on Digital Assets directed the Presidential Working Group to move forward on a Crypto Strategic Reserve that includes XRP, SOL, and ADA.

And, obviously, BTC and ETH, as other valuable Cryptocurrencies, will be the heart of the Reserve. I also love Bitcoin and Ethereum!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 2, 2025

After nearly a week of BTC price declines, the flagship token had fallen below US$79,000 on Tuesday. But by Sunday evening, BTC was trading at nearly $94,000, while ETH rose from $2,100 to $2,540 over the same span.

However, by Monday evening, BTC had fallen below $84,000 while ETH slipped below $2,100.

Still, both tokens were trading at higher prices than at the start of the week, and the swift price rally was largely credited to Trump’s posts.

The former president’s announcements came despite the fact that, aside from naming specific tokens, there wasn’t much new in either post.

Trump’s initial message was also a bit alarming to many BTC maximalists, who’ve been badgering Trump to launch a ‘Strategic Bitcoin Reserve’ for months now.

Those pleas grew more urgent after the president’s January 23 executive order on digital assets tasked the new President’s Working Group on Digital Assets (aka ‘crypto council’) with “evaluating the potential creation and maintenance of a national digital asset stockpile and proposing criteria for establishing such a stockpile.”

Trump’s post announcing the inclusion of XRP, SOL, and ADA appeared to fluster even members of the Working Group, which includes a few Cabinet members.

The administration has yet to announce the members of the Working Group, although it’s said to meet weekly and be chaired by Trump’s A.I. & Crypto Czar, David Sacks, with assistance from the exec director of the council, Bo Hines.

Those updates come after a joint House hearing last week saw both Democrats and Republicans fail to agree on anything other than the need for Congress to hurry up and pass some sort of legislation.

The administration’s plans will become a little more clear following the ‘crypto summit' at the White House on Friday, March 7. Trump himself will “host and deliver remarks” at the meeting, the first of its kind, which will feature “prominent founders, CEOs, and investors from the crypto industry.”

Also in attendance will be Working Group members and the summit will be chaired by Sacks and ‘administered’ by Hines.

Sacks’ role in the administration’s crypto plans has drawn criticism from some, especially on ‘Crypto Twitter,’ where many expressed outrage at the prospect of being taxed to pay for “crypto bro schemes.”

“Nobody announced a tax or a spending program. Maybe you should wait to find out what’s actually being proposed,” said Sacks.

Sacks also pushed back against allegations that he stood to personally profit from the reserve’s inclusion of tokens that, until Sunday, no one in history had referred to as ‘strategic.’

Responding to a Financial Times report that said he and his Craft Ventures investment firm “sold their direct cryptocurrency holdings soon after Trump’s inauguration,” Sacks said on Monday that he’d personally sold “all my cryptocurrency (including BTC, ETH, and SOL) prior to the start of the administration.”

However, that tweet got hit with a ‘community note’ due to Craft Ventures being an investor in Bitwise Asset Management, which lists its top-five token holdings as the same five tokens Trump mentioned on Sunday.

Sacks replied that the note “is a lie” because he “had a $74k position in the Bitwise [exchange-traded fund] which I sold on January 22. I do not have ‘large indirect holdings.’” Sacks promised further updates following the conclusion of a government ethics review (although Trump fired the director of the Office of Government Ethics nearly a month ago).

Sacks was an early SOL whale via his involvement in Multicoin Capital and appeared to joke about dumping his SOL bags on retail investors during a 2021 episode of the All-In podcast he co-hosts.

Sacks also previously spoke out against the government acting “as a capital allocator” because “the money goes to special interests who have the ability to lobby but not to innovate, and it has to come from somewhere.” To no one’s surprise, that 2021 tweet is getting a lot of airtime in 2025.

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Well, somebody’s insider trading

Following Trump’s proclamations, his son, Eric, tweeted his appreciation of “the genius of announcing a strategic reserve