Bitcoin soars 20% after Trump announces digital asset reserve

(Reuters): Bitcoin was trading up more than 20% from last week's lows on Monday and several other cryptocurrencies that United States President Donald Trump said would be included in a new US strategic reserve also rallied sharply.

Trump said in a post on Truth Social that his January executive order on digital assets would create a stockpile of currencies including bitcoin, ether, XRP, solana and cardano. The names had not previously been announced.

Bitcoin and ether will be at the heart of this reserve, he posted on Sunday.

The post sent the world's largest cryptocurrency up by a fifth from the November lows it was trading at on Friday, helping flip sentiment on a token that has been sliding since mid-January on disappointment Trump has not followed through on pledges to loosen regulation.

It was last trading around $93,057, up from Friday's $78,273.

Ether is up 10% from Friday's close and was last at $2,450, XRP was up 31%, solana 15% and cardano was up 69%.

"Trump just gave the pump that crypto traders have been holding out for," said Matt Simpson, senior market analyst at City Index.

"Any faith that was lost last week appears to have been restored," and new highs could be made unless there was another wave of risk-off selling, he said.

Chris Weston, head of research at Australian online broker Pepperstone, said it was possible the rally will extend into the first White House Crypto Summit that Trump is hosting on Friday, with the risk that the bearishness in other markets could weigh on sentiment.

While Wall Street closed higher on Friday, the recent selloff in large technology bellwethers such as Nvidia has eroded confidence in bitcoin, which some see as an alternative tech proxy.

Bitcoin fell more than 17% in February, clocking its biggest monthly percentage fall since June 2022 and losing more than a third of its price since topping $105,000 in early January.

Its rally since Trump's November election was spurred by optimism that the crypto-friendly president would champion a strategic bitcoin fund and end the previous Joe Biden administration's crackdown on the industry.

But beyond a flurry of appointments of crypto-friendly officials when Trump took office, there has been little concrete news so far around that policy for investors.

"While this announcement has significantly boosted prices, it has also raised concerns," wrote IG market analyst Tony Sycamore.

The funding for cryptocurrency purchases in the reserve could either come from US taxpayers or the cryptocurrencies in the asset will be those seized in law enforcement actions, he said.

"The latter isn't anywhere near as bullish as it simply represents a transfer between accounts rather than new buying entering the market."