Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, said on Jan. 21st that President Donald Trump is eager to make the United States the first country to have a Bitcoin strategic reserve, beating Russia and China to it. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 21st, Brian reportedly told Yahoo Finance that Trump’s enthusiasm for Bitcoin proves his ambition to make America the “crypto capital of the planet.” “He really wants to be the first Bitcoin president,” Brian said, adding that his meetings with Trump before and after the election focused on the crypto industry’s potential. The Coinbase CEO explained that just as the U.S. holds reserves in gold, oil, and rare minerals like palladium, Bitcoin is the next logical step. “The world is moving to a Bitcoin standard for money. Any government that holds gold should also hold Bitcoin as a reserve. President Trump gets that.” The First Family’s crypto venture Last Friday, the president launched his meme coin Official Trump (TRUMP), marketed with the slogan, “Join the Trump Community. This is History in the Making!” The coin, developed by CIC Digital, an affiliate of the Trump Organization, has a carefully managed supply structure. The official website shows that CIC Digital and its affiliates own 80% of the total supply, with new tokens scheduled for release over three years. Affiliates will reportedly earn revenue from trading fees as tokens are sold. Within 48 hours of its launch, the TRUMP meme coin reached a $73 billion market cap, briefly surpassing Dogecoin as the largest meme coin. However, its valuation has since dropped to $7.3 billion, according to current data from CoinMarketCap. The very next day, First Lady Melania Trump launched her own meme coin, Melania Meme (MELANIA), which currently holds a $732 million market cap. As Cryptopolitan reported, government ethics watchdogs have raised concerns about the Trump family profiting from their political positions. Despite the backlash though, industry analysts see this as a turning point. Asset manager Bernstein, said, “The launch of a meme coin by the biggest political figure in the world is a massive paradigm shift in how governments view crypto. This could be the beginning of direct engagement with the masses through blockchain technology.” Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis, a proud and renowned Bitcoin supporter in Congress, introduced the Bitcoin Act of 2024 in July to establish a reserve holding 200,000 Bitcoins, worth $2.1 billion at current prices. After Trump’s November 5 win, she tweeted, “We are going to build a strategic Bitcoin reserve.” Yesterday, Lummis met with Eric Trump at the Capitol to discuss plans for the reserve, according to Bloomberg. Eric then took to social media, urging investors to “bet on crypto” as part of their belief in America’s limitless potential. “No question Biden left a mess, but that mess will be corrected, and the next four years are going to be spectacular,” he said, predicting “transformational wealth” under his Dad’s leadership. A Step-By-Step System To Launching Your Web3 Career and Landing High-Paying Crypto Jobs in 90 Days.
