President Trump Wants to Make the United States the First Country to Have a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve

Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, said on Jan. 21st that President Donald Trump is eager to make the United States the first country to have a Bitcoin strategic reserve

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has claimed that President Donald Trump wants to make the United States the first country to establish a Bitcoin strategic reserve.

Speaking to Yahoo Finance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 21, Armstrong said that Trump’s enthusiasm for Bitcoin stems from his ambition to make America the “crypto capital of the planet.”

“He really wants to be the first Bitcoin president,” Armstrong said, adding that his meetings with Trump before and after the election centered on the potential of the crypto industry.

The Coinbase CEO went on to suggest that just as the U.S. maintains reserves in gold, oil, and rare minerals like palladium, Bitcoin is the next logical step.

“The world is moving to a Bitcoin standard for money. Any government that holds gold should also hold Bitcoin as a reserve. President Trump gets that.”

The First Family’s crypto venture

On Jan. 20, the president launched his meme coin Official Trump (TRUMP), which is marketed with the slogan, “Join the Trump Community. This is History in the Making!” The coin, which was created by CIC Digital, an affiliate of the Trump Organization, has a carefully managed supply structure.

According to the official website, CIC Digital and its affiliates own 80% of the total supply, with new tokens scheduled to be released over three years. Affiliates will reportedly earn revenue from trading fees as tokens are sold.

Within 48 hours of its launch, the TRUMP meme coin reached a $73 billion market cap, briefly surpassing Dogecoin as the largest meme coin. However, its valuation has since dropped to $7.3 billion, based on current data from CoinMarketCap.

The following day, First Lady Melania Trump also launched her own meme coin, Melania Meme (MELANIA), which currently holds a $732 million market cap.

As previously reported by Cryptopolitan, government ethics watchdogs have expressed concerns about the Trump family profiting from their political positions. Despite the backlash, industry analysts believe that this marks a turning point.

“The launch of a meme coin by the biggest political figure in the world is a massive paradigm shift in how governments view crypto. This could be the beginning of direct engagement with the masses through blockchain technology,” asset manager Bernstein said.

Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis, a known Bitcoin supporter in Congress, introduced the Bitcoin Act of 2024 in July, which would establish a reserve holding 200,000 Bitcoins, valued at $2.1 billion at current prices.

Following Trump’s victory on November 5, she tweeted, “We are going to build a strategic Bitcoin reserve.” On Jan. 20, Lummis met with Eric Trump at the Capitol to discuss plans for the reserve, according to Axios.

Eric subsequently took to social media, urging investors to “bet on crypto” as part of their belief in America’s boundless potential. “No question Biden left a mess, but that mess will be corrected, and the next four years are going to be spectacular,” he said, predicting “transformational wealth” under his father’s leadership.