US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to create a strategic reserve of Bitcoin, world agencies reported, quoted by BTA, citing White House cryptocurrency advisor David Sachs.
The reserve will be capitalized with Bitcoins owned by the federal government after being confiscated in criminal or civil proceedings, Sachs said.
Earlier this week, Trump announced the names of five digital currencies that he said he would include in the reserve. The five digital currencies were Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Solana and Cardano.
According to Sachs, the Bitcoin reserve will be a kind of "digital Fort Knox". In the US, Fort Knox is where the government stores its gold reserves.
As for cryptocurrency, the US already has about 200,000 bitcoins, according to Sachs. That's about $17.5 billion.
After the news of the reserve, the bitcoin exchange rate fell by 5.7 percent, as markets were figuratively disappointed that the government was not planning to buy cryptocurrencies for the purpose of the reserve. As of 1 p.m. Bitcoin fell to $84,707 today at Greenwich Mean Time.
The creation of the reserve still sends a strong message to the cryptocurrency industry and gives additional credibility to this regularly criticized asset, notes Agence France-Presse.
According to Trump's decree, the Treasury Secretary and Commerce Secretary will be able to offer to buy additional bitcoins, but they will not become part of the reserve.
The president's decree emphasizes Trump's commitment to making the United States the world's cryptocurrency capital, says Sachs.
Trump announced that French transport and logistics company CMA-CGM will invest $20 billion in the United States, world agencies reported.
“I am delighted to announce that the company will invest $20 billion in the United States,“ Trump said together with the group's president, Rodolphe Saadeh.
Trump said that this investment will be used to build infrastructure and logistics terminals for maritime transport, which will also allow the creation of about 10,000 jobs in the United States.
Saadeh, in turn, expressed his desire for more ships to fly under the American flag and promised that from the 10 ships the company operates and which now fly under the American flag, there will be 30 ships flying under the American flag.
Meanwhile, Canada has suspended the essential part of the measures it had taken in response to the tariffs introduced by Donald Trump on Canadian imports, after he postponed them shortly after their introduction, Agence France-Presse reported, quoted by BTA.
Trump announced that he was temporarily exempting many Canadian products entering the United States from tariffs.
Canada imposed retaliatory measures yesterday in the form of tariffs worth 30 billion Canadian dollars (19.5 billion euros) on American imports, but announced that it is for now refraining from introducing a second phase of measures, concerning tariffs worth 125 billion dollars on American goods, explained Canadian Finance Minister Dominique LeBlanc.