The crypto market rallied over the weekend on news that a future national crypto reserve would include three additional coins. But the digital asset class has already lost some of its gains.
President Donald Trump sparked a crypto market boost on Sunday after declaring that Solana, XRP and Cardano would be included in a national “Crypto Strategic Reserve.” The pop was a respite from a market downturn over the past few weeks prompted by a memecoin debacle, a major hack, and general tariff jitters.
But after notching double digit gains in the hours following the announcement, XRP, Solana and Cardano all lost steam. XRP jumped 32% in the hours following Trump’s announcement on Sunday, but has fallen 10% in the last 24 hours. Solana is down 8% on Monday after surging 27%, and Cardano is down 7%. Similarly, Bitcoin has fallen 4% in the last 24 hours after adding 11% on Sunday.
Diversifying the national crypto reserve
While Trump specified which currencies will be included in the reserve, he did not explain when the reserve will be established or how the government plans to pay for the assets.
Those details may become clear soon as Trump hosts the first cryptocurrency summit at the White House on Friday. The gathering will include “prominent founders, CEOs, and investors from the crypto industry,” David Sacks, prominent venture capitalist and the White House’s special advisor for AI and crypto, said in a post on X on Friday.
The president’s decision to add three more cryptocurrencies to a future crypto reserve reflects a growing trend among investors to diversify their holdings, Zach Pandl, head of research at asset manager Grayscale, told Fortune.
“We are incredibly enthusiastic about the outlook for Bitcoin and Bitcoin adoption, but the crypto asset class is diverse and broader than that,” he said. “We repeatedly hear the feedback that investors are interested in diversified crypto exposures for the same reason that they’re interested in those exposures in every other asset class.”
However, some industry leaders are skeptical of Trump’s idea to include multiple digital assets in the reserve. “Just Bitcoin would probably be the best option,” Brian Armstrong, CEO of crypto exchange Coinbase, said in a post on X on Sunday, reasoning it was the “simplest” move.
But Armstrong acknowledged the desire to diversify the government’s crypto holdings, saying that one alternative could be a “market cap weighted index of crypto assets to keep it unbiased.”