During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump made several promises to cryptocurrency holders. The Republican especially committed to building a strategic national reserve of bitcoins. This reserve, similar to that of gold, aims to guarantee the United States' place in the world of cryptocurrencies.
A few days after his return to the Oval Office, Donald Trump laid the first steps for this national reserve of cryptocurrencies. The president signed an executive order intended to "increase American influence in the field of digital finance technologies" by establishing a "presidential task force".
It includes a series of measures that are supposed to make the United States "the world capital of cryptocurrency". The task force unsurprisingly includes David Sacks, the Trump administration’s crypto advisor, and the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Paul Atkins.
The first step towards a national crypto reserve
This task force is tasked with drawing up the outlines of a national cryptocurrency reserve. Its mission is to assess the “feasibility of creating and maintaining a national stock of digital assets and to propose criteria for establishing such a stock”. Official White House documents do not refer to the project as a bitcoin reserve. At this stage, it is possible that other digital currencies will be incorporated into the reserve. The prospect of a reserve mostly made up of cryptocurrencies from the United States has been raised, and Trump has been receptive to it.
As expected, the reserve “would potentially come from cryptocurrencies lawfully seized by the federal government.”The United States has indeed seized a mountain of cryptocurrencies from criminals over the past decade. These cryptocurrencies are regularly auctioned off. To create a reserve, it would simply be necessary to hold on to the seized cryptocurrencies instead of selling them. At last count, the U.S. government holds more than 180,000 bitcoins, or $18.95 billion.
The project is underway, but there will be some patience before a national cryptocurrency reserve is created. The order directs the task force to consider the issue of a reserve within 180 days. It’s a good sign for the initiative, though.
The group is also expected to consider a clearer and more flexible regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies, including stablecoins, currencies whose value is based on a fiat currency, such as the dollar. In the process, the president signed an executive order that prohibits the issuance of a digital dollar, in line with his campaign promises. Despite the signals sent in the first two days of his presidency, Donald Trump seems ready to quickly look into the case of cryptocurrencies and keep his many promises.
In parallel, the United States Senate has set up its first-ever US Senate subcommittee dedicated to cryptocurrencies. Led by pro-crypto Senator Cynthia Lummis, the committee is expected to work on establishing a regulatory framework that is welcoming to cryptocurrency giants. He must also ensure that financial regulators do not stifle innovation in blockchain. Note that the committee leader is the author of the Bitcoin Act, which would create a national bitcoin reserve.
Source: White House
0 Comments