US President Donald Trump’s inaugural “crypto summit” at the White House on Friday was characterised by many of his classic touches: breaking tradition, teasing potentially risky bets and offering up US government resources in a starkly different way.
Ahead of the summit, Trump signed an executive order on Thursday establishing a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and United States Digital Asset Stockpile”.
Analysts cautioned that this could place US assets in a highly volatile medium that many consider speculative.
“I promise to make America the bitcoin superpower of the world and the crypto capital of the planet,” Trump said. “China is pushing forward and very strongly as usual, but we’re way in the lead, as we are in AI and other things, and we want to stay there.”
Earlier this week, Trump announced on social media that the reserve would involve five cryptocurrencies: bitcoin, ether, XRP, solana and cardano.
But the executive order largely focused on bitcoin.
“Bitcoin is often referred to as ‘digital gold’,” it read. “Our nation must harness, not limit, the power of digital assets for our prosperity.”