Cryptocurrencies in the US strategic reserve
The fact that the new Trump administration in the United States has made a U-turn on cryptocurrencies compared with his first term in 2016 is nothing new. Already during the election campaign, the then presidential candidate had moved closer to the world of virtual currencies, among other things by accepting campaign contributions directly in that form.
Once elected, Trump confirmed his commitment, setting out his vision of making the United States the crypto capital of the planet and also signing an executive order on digital assets.
At a brisk pace, in recent days, putting this strategy into practice, he announced plans to set up a Strategic Cryptocurrency Reserve, paving the way for cryptocurrency operations by the US government. Obviously, an operation of this kind could be a turning point for the whole sector.
In fact, the announcement goes as far as indicating which cryptocurrencies might be covered by the measure.
The first is, of course, Bitcoin, and so far there are no surprises. Bitcoin is considered digital gold, a possible store of value, although we’ll never tire of repeating what we’ve said many times on this blog: Bitcoin in itself is useless, it’s extremely slow, cumbersome and energy-hungry (but on the other hand, also secure and deflationary).
He then mentioned a second group of cryptocurrencies, in a sense much more interesting: Ether, Solana and Ada. Ether is known as the second-ranked crypto by total market capitalization, while the other two are mostly unknown outside the crypto community. What do they have in common? All three are the native cryptocurrencies of three different blockchains that can run smart contracts. Remember that smart contracts are software modules that run automatically when the conditions defined in the contract are met. It should be stressed, however, that the smart contracts people have been talking about for years have not yet taken off in widespread use.
From a technological point of view, both Ethereum (Ethereum is the blockchain, Ether its crypto) and Solana use a virtual machine. Solana, an advanced second-generation blockchain, was created to overcome the performance limitations of Ethereum, which, on the other hand, was the first blockchain to make smart contracts possible. In 2024, several ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) were launched on Ether
Cardano (with its ADA crypto) also handles smart contracts, but uses a technology different from virtual machines.
Finally, the plan for crypto in the US strategic reserve would appear to include XRP as well. The XRP cryptocurrency is particularly interesting because it differs substantially from the others mentioned above (and not only from them) in both its technological approach and its governance mechanisms. We’ll devote a future post to XRP, with all the necessary details. Here, we’ll just point out two somewhat contrasting aspects of XRP. On the one hand, it’s the only one of the five cryptocurrencies with a Stars-and-Stripes identity, being managed by a California-based company. On the other, it is in open competition with Swift, the international funds transfer system, as powerful as it is unknown to the general public, on which the dominance of the dollar and, ultimately, the geopolitical power of the United States of America are based.
