President Donald Trump on Thursday night officially established the widely anticipated U.S. strategic bitcoin reserve , fulfilling a major re-election campaign promise to the crypto industry. The market didn’t seem to care much, however. Cryptocurrencies have recovered most of their initial losses after a quick drop following the news. Bitcoin was hovering at $88,000, the same level at traded at before Trump signed the executive order. Ether and the Solana token inched slightly higher, while XRP and the coin tied to Cardano were lower. While many praised the executive order as being a good and reasonable approach, especially given how disconcerted so many in the crypto community were by his mention of smaller and riskier coins beyond bitcoin in his pre-announcement last weekend, it left the crypto community wanting more. “President Trump on Thursday night unveiled a bitcoin reserve and a crypto stockpile. Both will be funded by crypto the government seizes. This is not the aggressive bitcoin reserve some were pressing for,” TD Cowen’s Jaret Seiberg said in a note Friday. “We view this as a compromise,” he added. The government is not spending taxpayer dollars to acquire new digital assets. It is simply not selling the ones that it seizes … We are dubious that government will be acquiring additional bitcoin for the reserve despite the President’s instructions as we believe it will be politically tough to show how purchases are budget neutral and do not impose incremental costs of taxpayers.” BTC.CM= 5D mountain Bitcoin (BTC) this week Still, Seiberg acknowledged that the directive is “positive for crypto as it shows White House support for digital assets.” For many crypto investors, it also assuages fear of the government selling or banning bitcoin; increases the likelihood that other countries will buy bitcoin and raises its legitimacy among financial institutions; wealth managers and pensions who have been on the fence or altogether discouraged from participating in this market. But analysts at Compass Point said the order was “almost nothing.” They emphasized that it doesn’t exactly permit the Treasury Department or other government agencies to acquire crypto assets. On top of that, it can easily be undone with another executive order in the future. “An executive order is not legislation, it is an exercise of executive authority, and it is not durable,” analyst Edwin Groshans said in a note. “Without legislation passed by Congress, there is no statutory text that can only be unwound by Congress.” “To be frank, we view its issuance to be a dud that will not provide support to the value of BTC or any other digital asset, primarily because there is no authorization to purchase BTC and the purchase of digital assets are expressly prohibited,” he added. “We will reassess the relevance of the SBR when Treasury and Commerce publish the strategies to acquire BTC.” Plus, traditional macro investors aren’t that interested in it yet, according to Noelle Acheson, economist and author of the “Crypto is Macro Now” newsletter. For now, she added, the macro mood continues to weigh heavy on crypto markets. “There is nothing on the immediate horizon to suggest relief for the building concern about a slowdown,” Acheson said. “The Trump tariff shift yesterday, granting a one-month reprieve to some goods, lifted stocks briefly before investors decided that this flip-flopping is more part of the problem than it is a cure.”
