- President Trump announced Bitcoin, Ethereum and a host of other cryptocurrencies to be held in U.S. reserves. Bitcoin has since erased nearly all the gains made on the announcement.
- Many countries, including the U.S., UK and China, have held significant amounts of cryptocurrency, much of it seized from criminal enterprises.
- The White House will hold a cryptocurrency summit this Friday, March 7.
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President Donald Trump announced which tokens would be held in a U.S. strategic cryptocurrency reserve over the weekend of March 1. But the U.S. isn’t the only country that holds digital assets.
“A U.S. Crypto Reserve will elevate this critical industry after years of corrupt attacks by the Biden Administration, which is why my Executive Order on Digital Assets directed the Presidential Working Group to move forward on a Crypto Strategic Reserve,” the president posted to Truth Social the morning of Sunday, March 2.
“I will make sure the U.S. is the Crypto Capital of the World,” Trump added. “We are MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump said the crypto reserve would hold Ripple, Solana and Cardano in his initial post.
“Obviously, BTC and ETH, as other valuable Cryptocurrencies, will be the heart of the Reserve,” he later clarified. “I also love Bitcoin and Ethereum!”
What Trump said about holding crypto before
Trump previously promised his administration would keep all the Bitcoin the U.S. government holds.
“It will be the policy of my administration, United States of America, to keep 100% of all the Bitcoin the US government currently holds or acquires into the future,” he said at Bitcoin2024 in July. “This will serve, in effect, as the core of the strategic national Bitcoin stockpile.”
Further information about the strategic reserve sent crypto values surging on Sunday. Since sitting near all-time highs above $100,000 in early February, the price of Bitcoin plunged nearly 20%. Over the weekend, it recouped more than 15% of those losses but retreated to start the week.
How US crypto holdings compare
The government currently holds somewhere around 200,000 Bitcoin, according to Arkham Intelligence. That would put its value at roughly $16 billion, depending on price fluctuations. Meanwhile, it holds around 56,000 Ethereum, which is worth around $116 million as of Tuesday, March 4. Most of the cryptocurrency held by the U.S. government was seized due to unlawful activity.
Other countries also hold cryptocurrency from similar seizures.
China reportedly held close to as much Bitcoin as the U.S. with 194,000, but way outpaced the U.S. on its holdings of Ethereum at 833,000. Similar to the U.S., most of China’s cryptocurrency was seized as part of the PlusToken scam. China doesn’t report the information publicly but is believed to have sold $20 billion in Bitcoin in 2025.
Meanwhile, the U.K. seized more than 61,000 BTC earlier in 2025 as part of a fraud investigation.
El Salvador holds just over 6,000 Bitcoin. El Salvador is significant since it made Bitcoin a legal tender in 2021. However, the nation recently amended that law not to require all merchants to accept the digital asset. The change was made to secure funding from the International Monetary Fund.
A crypto-forward White House
Trump has been very active in his support of the crypto community and industry since reentering the White House. In the first days following his inauguration, Trump established a working group on crypto to be led by the White House’s AI and Cryptocurrency Czar David Sacks. Part of that working group is looking into creating a national crypto stockpile and proposing a regulatory framework for the industry.
Trump even became an overnight cryptocurrency billionaire after dispensing Trump meme coins on the Solana blockchain ahead of his inauguration.
The White House will also host a crypto industry summit on Friday, March 7.
“Attendees will include prominent founders, CEOs, and investors from the crypto industry, as well as members of the President’s Working Group on Digital Assets,” the White House Office of Communications said in a release. “President Trump’s policy vision represents a new era for digital financial technology. The administration is committed to providing a clear regulatory framework, enabling innovation, and protecting economic liberty.”