by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

One of Donald Trump’s campaign promises was to create a government “Crypto Reserve” where the U.S. Government would own cryptocurrency assets to be used to run the country.

Much of the talk was originally about the U.S. Government owning Bitcoin, but this past weekend Trump announced that it would include other cryptocurrencies as well.

The news originally sent cryptocurrency values higher, but most of them came crashing back down today, as did Wall Street in general.

Trump Crypto Rally Fizzles After Skepticism on Reserves Plan

(Bloomberg) — Donald Trump’s announcement that the US will include three lesser-known digital tokens in its strategic crypto reserve was greeted with skepticism in the industry, with investors questioning the project’s merits and the coins he selected giving up some of their initial gains.

Trump said Sunday on Truth Social that the XRP, SOL and ADA tokens will be included in the reserve, along with Bitcoin and Ether. The news ignited an immediate crypto rally, offering relief to an asset class fresh off its worst month since 2022.

Yet the initial euphoria soon gave way to questions about everything from the feasibility of Trump’s plan to the motivations behind it. Crypto markets were mostly back in the red on Monday, with XRP, SOL and ADA each suffering intraday declines of more than 10% after soaring the day before.

The February crypto rout had put pressure on Trump, who returned to the White House after the industry showered him with campaign donations and praise. Even the Securities and Exchange Commission’s reversal of a years-long crackdown had failed to stem the selloff, which many attributed in part to nervousness about Trump’s trade tariffs and dramatic moves to gut government programs. (Source.)

Financial advisor Catherine Austin Fitts of the Solari Report has been very vocal against any kind of Bitcoin or Crypto Reserve by the government, referring to it as a “reverse Robinhood” of stealing from the poor and giving it to the rich. Her fears are that such a reserve would be used to buy real assets, such as real estate, while leaving speculative cryptocurrencies in people’s pensions and retirement funds.

Here are a few short video interviews where she discusses this.

Catherine and the Solari Report has a Substack Page now, and she published a good overview and summary of this proposed Crypto Reserve at the end of December.

BITCOIN BAILOUT: Why a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Is a Bailout of the Big Boys

Excerpts:

Who Is Proposing the Creation of Bitcoin Strategic Reserves?

Several proposals for a Bitcoin strategic reserve were floated during the 2024 U.S. presidential election campaign.

At the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville in July, President Trump promised, if elected, to fire Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler, whose regulatory policies and enforcement are unpopular with the crypto industry. In addition, Trump proposed halting sales of existing DOJ holdings of approximately 208,000 Bitcoins representing asset seizures and moving the position to Treasury as a permanent holding. This would ease downward price pressure in the relatively illiquid Bitcoin market.

To great applause, at that same conference Robert F. Kennedy Jr. proposed a long-term mandated Bitcoin buying program by the federal government, promising that this would raise the Bitcoin price significantly. He also proposed that sellers should be allowed to remain confidential and have the opportunity to reinvest their proceeds on a tax-free basis by qualifying the exchange of Bitcoin for real estate as a qualifying Section 1031 like-kind exchange.11 This could result in extraordinary windfall profits to the “Bitcoin billionaires.”

 

How such purchases would be financed is not yet clear. At the federal level, purchases could be financed from appropriations, which depend on sales of Treasury notes and bonds, a growing percentage of which are purchased by American retirement funds or monetized through the Federal Reserve in a way that is driving inflation. Another source of funding for Bitcoin strategic reserves could be asset seizures by the DOJ.

[…]

Cui Bono? The Bailout of the Big Boys

We can see why large Bitcoin holders would want federal and state buying programs to help them increase prices and create a sufficiently liquid market to make it possible to exit their positions, particularly before the Bitcoin ecosystem becomes unsustainable and the competition for increasingly scarce energy resources and the growing environmental damage become more widely understood.

[…]

If government can afford to buy private crypto assets, it can afford to—and should—cut taxes instead. Let citizens decide if, in what, and when they wish to speculate. Citizens do not need Bitcoin to fight inflation. What they could use to fight inflation is lower taxes, basic infrastructure, and public services that support a productive economy.

(Full article.)

[…]

Via https://vaccineimpact.com/2025/trumps-crypto-reserve-will-bail-out-silicon-valley-and-wall-street-billionaires-at-the-expense-of-average-americans/