XRP Price Falls. Why Trump's Stockpile Plan Is a Letdown for Altcoins. — Barrons.com

By Callum KeownXRP and other cryptocurrencies fell early Friday as President Donald Trump's plan for a digital asset stockpile failed to provide the boost the market had anticipated.The president signed an executive order to establish a digital asset stockpile and previously said XRP, Solana and Cardano would be among the coins included. But White House crypto czar said the government will not buy additional assets for the stockpile beyond those it has obtained as part of criminal and civil forfeiture proceedings.XRP, which is used to facilitate transactions on Ripple Labs' digital-payments platform, fell to $2.53--more than 2% down over the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk data. Ethereum was down 3.5% to $2,189, while Solana fell 4% to $143.05. Bitcoin was 1% lower at $89,221.Trump's crypto executive order may be slightly better news for Bitcoin, which will have its own strategic reserve. It will also be capitalized using forfeited proceeds but Treasury and Commerce secretaries "are authorized to develop budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin, provided that those strategies have no incremental costs on American taxpayers," Sacks added. The U.S. will not sell any Bitcoin deposited in the reserve, he said."Not only have they confirmed they can buy more Bitcoin, but they also cannot sell it. In contrast with other cryptocurrencies, they can sell but cannot buy more," Danny Scott, CEO at exchange CoinCorner said."This is massively positive for Bitcoin, making a significant step toward global differentiation," he added.On the flip side, it's not as good as it might've been for altcoins, such as XRP. The only way the stockpile can be added to is through forfeiture proceedings.XRP has surged 384% over the past six months but hopes for charge back toward its record high of $3.40 have been dashed for now.Write to Callum Keown at [email protected] content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.