Bitcoin fans have their doubts about Trump’s crypto reserve plan

• President Donald Trump said five cryptocurrencies would be included in a strategic reserve.
• Bitcoin, ether, XRP, Solana, and Cardano are all on the list.
• Critics have questioned the inclusion of lesser-known coins, suggesting bitcoin would be a better choice.

President Donald Trump’s plan to include five coins in a national strategic reserve has sparked a fierce debate in the crypto world.

Some commentators think including XRP (Ripple), Solana, and Cardano alongside bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency, and ether poses risks.

Brian Armstrong, cofounder and CEO of Coinbase, was unsure if having a number of cryptos included in the reserve was the best approach.

“Just Bitcoin would probably be the best option,” he wrote in a post on X this week, adding that it offered a “clear story as successor to gold.”

Danny Scott, CEO of UK-based crypto exchange CoinCorner, told Business Insider that other countries would not be interested in buying XRP, Solana, and Cardano.

“Bitcoin makes sense because it isn’t controlled by anybody in the world,” he said. “It isn’t controlled by an entity. There is no company for bitcoin, there’s no CEO for bitcoin. It makes no sense as a strategic reserve to buy something that nobody else in the world is going to buy.”

Tyler Winklevoss, the cofounder of the Gemini crypto platform along with his brother Cameron, said on X he had “nothing against” XRP, Solana, and Cardano, but didn’t think they were “suitable” for a strategic reserve.

“Only one digital asset in the world right now meets the bar and that digital asset is bitcoin,” Winklevoss said.

David Marcus, co-creator of a crypto project that was discontinued at Facebook, said on X in response to Winklevoss: “Most — if not all — of the non-conflicted industry leaders are agreeing about this.”

Anthony Pompliano, a crypto commentator and entrepreneur, described the shape of the reserve as an “unforced error.”

He wrote on Substack this week that rather than setting up a reserve with the relative stability of bitcoin, “we seem to be getting a random smattering of speculative tools that will enrich the insiders and creators of these coins at the expense of the US taxpayer.”

Bitcoin was trading at about $90,000 on Thursday after dipping as low as about $78,640 in the past week amid choppy crypto trading.