KEY POINTS
- Odds were down as low as 41% early this month but surged to 75% late on Tuesday
- Bo Hines said the White House is still in search of “budget-neutral” methods for stacking more Bitcoin
- An expert said the $BTC drawdown ever after Trump announced an SBR is due to the project being “entirely political”
Cryptocurrency bettors on decentralized market prediction platform Polymarket are positive that while President Donald Trump may not be able to officially establish a national strategic Bitcoin reserve (SBR) within the first 100 days of his second presidency, he may still have a good chance of getting it done sometime this year.
The event contract asking bettors whether a U.S. SBR will be created in 2025 showed that crypto users on the platform pushed chances as high as 75% late Tuesday night.
The figures represent a significant spike from when the odds were down to 41% early this month.
Polymarket
US seeks $BTC acquisition without taxpayer cost
The surge in chances for a Bitcoin reserve in the U.S. on Polymarket came as Bo Hines, the head of the president’s digital assets working group, reiterated at the Digital Asset Summit 2025 in New York on Tuesday that the administration was indeed looking for ways to accumulate more BTC without placing the burden on American taxpayers.
Trump’s executive order establishing the U.S. Bitcoin reserve stated that the reserve will initially be funded with the seized BTC being held by the Treasury Department.
“I’ve been asked, How much do you want? I said, Well, that’s like asking a country How much gold do you want, right? I mean, as much as we can get.”
– @BoHines pic.twitter.com/vtoOfEXm5E
— Digital Asset Summit 2025 (@blockworksDAS) March 18, 2025
It did order the appropriate agencies to find “budget-neutral” strategies on how the country can acquire more Bitcoins without taking anything from taxpayer funds.
Hines confirmed this, noting that the presidential crypto council will collaborate with the Treasury and Commerce chiefs “in order to find those budget-neutral ways in which we can acquire more.”
Why are Bitcoin prices down then?
Despite growing optimism for a U.S. SBR to be established sometime this year, Bitcoin appears unmoved, with the world’s most valuable crypto asset trading below $85,000 as of early Wednesday.
Jeff Park, the head of Alpha Strategies at Bitwise, explained that one reason why Trump’s BTC reserve reveal didn’t seem to push crypto prices up was because of a half-baked announcement that “did not draw the needed path for the final adoption of BTC as a global SoV (store of value).”
How the political theatre of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve mirage set us up for Bitcoin’s fastest drawdown, and why the real trade that wins next lies in regulated leverage on the most apolitically constrained commodity–
Position yourself soon before it’s too late 👇 pic.twitter.com/ozxPZPbSem
— Jeff Park (@dgt10011) March 10, 2025
He further noted that it appeared the U.S. announcement of a BTC reserve had become politicized.
“Once it became clear that the SBR project was entirely political, it lost the mysticism of what Bitcoin is supposed to be: apolitical,” he wrote.
It remains to be seen whether Bitcoin will be able to recover from the drawdown and if Trump’s Bitcoin reserve, once officially established, can fuel a much-needed price pump amid souring sentiments among newbie BTC holders.
