Donald Trump’s Crypto Reserve has received considerable skepticism from the crypto community. Rather than a stand-alone Bitcoin Reserve, he is proposing to fill a national reserve with XRP, Cardano, and other US-based tokens.

Already, these assets’ weekend gains have evaporated. As Congress seems very unlikely to pass the Reserve bill into law, this plan may have little long-term impact on the market.

XRP and ADA Drop More Than 20%

Since Donald Trump announced a US Crypto Reserve with XRP, Cardano, and Solana, the markets have been conflicted. During his 2024 election campaign, Trump ran on establishing a Bitcoin Reserve, but his recent executive order included a focus on other US-based cryptoassets.

Already, the crypto community has harshly criticized the decision, and it’s only intensifying:

“I’ve been thinking about the US Strategic Bitcoin/Crypto Reserve and there are two possible outcomes: The reserve is BTC and none of the mentioned altcoins actually make it in, or we’re going to accelerate into degeneracy unlike anything seen before,” said Samson Mow, a renowned opinion leader in the space.

Essentially, President Trump cannot simply purchase the requisite amounts of altcoins. The Bitcoin Reserve was premised on the notion that the federal government already controls the relevant assets due to seizures.

However, Congress will need to approve new purchases, and even some Republican party members might be hesitant to do so.

“Nothing new here. Just words. Let me know when they get congressional approval to borrow money and or revalue the gold price higher. Without that, they have no money to buy Bitcoin and shitcoins,” wrote former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes.

Several community members have speculated that Trump named these assets to fend off increasingly dire warnings of a bear market.

Although he did cause a pump over the weekend, it completely evaporated by Monday, and the community is not happy. XRP fell by 18%, Cardano dropped by 23%, and the entire crypto market is looking quite bearish.

“XRP basically flat over the last 10 days despite the literal President of the United States posting its ticker and saying it should be part of a US strategic crypto reserve,” said Bloomberg analyst Joe Weisenthal.

A Political Handout?

There are also potential hypotheses that President Trump’s choice to include XRP and ADA was largely because of the company’s political donations to his administration. Solana, too, stood to benefit greatly from Trump’s administration, and TRUMP meme coin was launched on the network.

In other words, it’s incomplete to suggest that these assets are in Trump’s expanded Reserve plan because they’re US-based companies. Each firm’s leadership is also materially entangled with him.

XRP, Cardano, and Solana would all get a direct boost from major federal acquisitions, and the companies’ closeness to the President may influence matters here.

“ETH and SOL make sense, given their strong and growing developer activity. But it’s not clear to me why XRP and ADA were included at all, considering they are virtually ghost chains compared to Ethereum and Solana. Indeed, the total value locked (TVL) and stablecoin capabilities on XRPL and Cardano are tiny compared to other ecosystem players. In my eyes, it somewhat delegitimizes the whole idea of crypto reserve assets like industry mainstays Bitcoin, Ether and Solana,” director of business development at SPACE ID Harrison Seletsky told BeInCrypto.

All that is to say, a lot is standing in the way of Trump’s proposal. The Republicans control Congress, but only by a slight margin. Some Democrats may oppose using taxpayer funds for crypto purchases, while Republican fiscal conservatives may question the impact on federal spending.

Overall, there’s a long way for the US president’s proposed crypto reserve to become a reality.