Trump signs executive order creating strategic Bitcoin reserve

The value of Bitcoin crept up to $82,730 on the back of an executive order signed by president Trump creating a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
The order does two things: 1) it creates a reserve comprised exclusively for Bitcoin and 2) a separate digital asset stockpile for other forms of digital currency such as Ethereum, Solana, XRP and ADA.
The strategic reserve will be populated initially with the almost 200,000 Bitcoin already held by the government.
President Trump said the reserve would be budget neutral and the would not be used in any trading – in effect taking seized digital currency and officialy putting it into the federal coffers.
Reaction to the move has been muted, with some crypto enthusiasts adhering to the ‘promises made, promises kept’ line of the administration, while others have criticised the idea of a government-controlled strategic reserve as being anathema to Bitcoin, by design an unregulated, global digital currency.
Today the White House is hosting a summit today under AI and crypto tsar David Sacks. Posting on X after the order was signed he wrote: “The U.S. will not sell any bitcoin deposited into the Reserve. It will be kept as a store of value. The Reserve is like a digital Fort Knox for the cryptocurrency often called “digital gold.” 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.
“In addition, the executive order establishes a US Digital Asset Stockpile, consisting of digital assets other than bitcoin forfeited in criminal or civil proceedings.”
Bitcoin has had a turbulent week, the value of a single coin dropping to just over $78,000 on 4 March as patience with the Trump Administration and a $1.5 billion heist at exchange Bybit dented investor confidence.
The prospect of the US become – as the President promised – the crypto capital of the world was enough to energise the market last July but the reality of a budget neutral stance won’t do much to win over sceptics or boost the currency’s value.
Speaking to the BBC, Charles Edwards of Bitcoin and digital assets hedge fund, the Capriole Fund, called Sacks’ announcement “a pig in lipstick”.
“No active buying means this is just a fancy title for Bitcoin holdings that already existed with the government,” he said.
The value of Bitcoin peaked at $106,469 on 19 January and has trended downwards in February as the second Trump administration focused on cultural flashpoints, trade disputes and unravelling international relations.
Any Bitcoin holders expecting their investments to skyrocket in value as the US government starts buying crypto will not be getting the benefit of another ‘Trump bump’.
TechCentral Reporters