Bitcoin prices fell more than 5% on Friday after White House crypto czar David Sacks said the US government would not use taxpayer money to fund a strategic stockpile of the largest digital asset ordered by President Donald Trump.
As of 10:35 a.m., the Bitcoin price had dropped by up to 4.63% to $87,925. Other smaller digital tokens, such as Ethereum, XRP, Cardano, and Solana, saw their prices drop by up to 5%
A day before his meeting with cryptocurrency industry executives at the White House, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a strategic bitcoin reserve.
The reserve will be funded with bitcoin owned by the federal government and forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings, billionaire David Sacks announced in a post on social media platform X.
Trump had announced the names of five digital assets that he intends to include in this reserve, which boosted their market value. The president identified the five as bitcoin, ether, XRP, solana, and Cardano.
According to reports, the US currently owns approximately $16.4 billion in Bitcoin and approximately $400 million in seven other tokens, owing primarily to asset forfeitures resulting from civil and criminal proceedings.
"The US will not sell any bitcoins deposited in the Reserve. It will be kept as a store of value. "The Reserve is like a digital Fort Knox for the cryptocurrency, also known as digital gold," Sacks explained.
The executive order also authorizes the Treasury and Commerce Department secretaries to develop "budget-neutral strategies" for acquiring additional Bitcoin, as long as there is no additional cost to American taxpayers, he stated.
