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 new and starkly different way.
Hours before it was due to start, Trump announced the signing of an executive order 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 will make sure the US is the Crypto Capital of the World,” Trump said earlier this week on social media, announcing 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. “Just as it is in our country’s interest to thoughtfully manage national ownership and control of any other resource, our nation must harness, not limit, the power of digital assets for our prosperity.”
Unlike ordinary paper currency, cryptocurrency is not issued by a central government, instead operating on a decentralised digital network. As such, digital currencies have no intrinsic value or legislated status as legal tender and are only worth what buyers are willing to pay.