Trump Announces His Crypto Working Group Will Move Forward on a "Crypto Strategic Reserve" Including XRP, ADA and SOL

When U.S. President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Sunday to announce his crypto working group will move forward on a "crypto strategic reserve"

U.S. President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Sunday to announce his crypto working group will be moving forward with a “crypto strategic reserve,” and industry pundits were surprised to see the likes of XRP, ADA and even SOL included in that order.

The president’s addition of these three cryptocurrencies did not sit well with some, even though he made a follow-up post to reaffirm that BTC and ETH, the two largest cryptocurrencies by market cap, would also be included.

“A U.S. Crypto Reserve will elevate this critical industry after years of corrupt attacks by the Biden Administration. I will make sure the U.S. is the Crypto Capital of the World,” Trump wrote.

Trump signed an executive order in January to explore a strategic digital asset reserve, with language around evaluating the “potential creation” of a digital asset stockpile. Later this week, he is set to host an inaugural White House Crypto Summit and will deliver remarks to crypto founders, CEOs and investors, which will be chaired by Crypto Czar David Sacks and run by Bo Hines, the director of Trump’s working group on digital assets.

While the news sparked the market — with all five assets rallying between 10% and 70% — the order drew heavy criticism.

“It's not the job of the government to run an ersatz crypto hedge fund. It's not their job to pick winners and losers,” Castle Island Ventures General Partner Nic Carter said in a post on X.

ETH and SOL make sense to include, given their strong and growing developer activity, said Harrison Seletsky, director of business development at digital identity platform SPACE ID. However, XRP and ADA are “virtually ghost chains” compared to Ethereum and Solana, he remarked, with the total value locked and stablecoin capabilities on XRPL and Cardano being tiny compared to other ecosystem players — $80 million and $460 million, respectively.

“In my eyes, it somewhat delegitimizes the whole idea of crypto reserve assets like industry mainstays bitcoin, ether and solana,” Seletsky said. Still, he noted it further legitimizes digital assets in the eyes of newcomers and institutions.

XRP, ADA and SOL are all “basically tech companies that happen to have a cryptocurrency,” according to Two Prime Digital Assets CEO Alexander Blume.

“They are very centrally controlled and ownership is also highly concentrated,” Blume told The Block. “These products are constantly changing and adapting to the market whereas BTC is a decentralized product with no single group of owners or controllers and is more akin to gold.”

The question now is whether we will see any actual details around crypto legislation in the foreseeable future, according to Chris Chung, founder of the Solana swap platform Titan.

“What’s clear is that the U.S. president is now the driving force for crypto market movements, and he is certainly playing favorites with crypto tokens. I certainly think the U.S. administration’s vote of confidence could expedite the approval of altcoin ETFs. This would likely go hand in hand with greater regulatory clarity on the classification of the underlying tokens in these ETFs, including Solana, XRP and the others awaiting the SEC’s decision.”

Investment bank TD Cowen called the announcement uncoordinated, a point echoed by CoinCorner CEO Danny Scott.

“It felt very unprofessional — almost a knee-jerk reaction to the crypto market going through a correction and Trump not wanting it to reflect poorly on himself,” Scott said in an email. “This could have been a purely political play to maintain support.”

The skepticism extended beyond the assets themselves, raising broader concerns about the government’s role in influencing the crypto market.

"The announcement of the US crypto reserve, which will include XRP, SOL and ADA, is a clear sign that President Trump is trying to pump his own bags," Jean Rausis, co-founder of decentralized finance ecosystem SMARDEX, said in a statement. "He doesn’t understand anything about these assets or the merits of having them in a strategic reserve. It's obvious that Bitcoin and Ethereum are much more suited for this, yet they were mentioned as an afterthought."

Many industry leaders argue that a true strategic reserve should focus solely on Bitcoin. Their concerns highlight a broader divide between political motivations and market fundamentals, with critics questioning whether the administration’s approach prioritizes optics over practicality.

"I imagined a Strategic Reserve would be just Bitcoin. That makes the most sense to me," Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsely said in a post on X. "Many crypto assets have merits, but what we're talking about here isn't a U.S. investment portfolio — we're talking about a reserve, and Bitcoin is the undisputed store of value for the digital age."

Scott, whose company runs a Bitcoin trading exchange, said it makes “zero sense” for a crypto reserve to buy anything but BTC.

"No country wants to hold something that can be fully controlled by a single entity, especially an entity in