The White House draws the boundary between Bitcoin and digital assets in its first Crypto Summit at EO

“From this day on, America follows the rule that everyone in Bitcoin knows well. Don’t sell Bitcoin.” – President Donald Trump at first White House Script Summit 3/7/25

The US President is currently reciting the popular Bitcoin maxim related to the American Bitcoin stack.

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It is clear that he received the message that Bitcoin is completely different from all other digital assets.

He has proven this not only in what he said in today’s Crypto Summit, but also in signing last night’s Executive Order (EO) to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) independent of digital assets stockpiling.

Strategic Bitcoin Reserve

Regarding SBR, the president said today that the US is planning to hold Bitcoin it owns, unlike previous administrations that sold large amounts of money.

“Unfortunately, in recent years the US government has foolishly sold tens of thousands of Bitcoin (200,000, by some estimates).

That said, the president also shared that members of his administration are pursuing a path to accumulating Bitcoin.

“The Treasury and Commerce will explore new routes to accumulate additional Bitcoin holdings in the reserve, if they are free to taxpayers,” he said.

“We don’t want to spend money on taxpayers,” he reiterated, highlighting the notion that the US government is planning to accumulate Bitcoin “to borrow language from last night’s EO).

Participants

Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick attended the summit along with around 30 prominent members of the Bitcoin and crypto industry. These include strategy executive director Michael Saylor, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and BTC INC. CEO David Bailey.

Other members of the Trump administration were also present, including Small Business Administration Director Kelly Loeffler and White House Crypto Zar David Sachs.

Both Sack and Loffler praised Trump’s pace of progress in Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency executive orders and laws.

“Your admin is running on Tech (Startup) Speed,” Sacks said.

“In fact, it’s faster than the startups I’ve been involved in,” the venture capitalist added that he is well-known for investing in many high-tech startups in his career.

Secretary Lutnick assured President Trump’s new knowledge of Bitcoin and crypto, adding that the president has truly embraced technology.

“Blockchain and Bitcoin technology are important parts of (the president’s) thinking,” says Lutnick.

“We use blockchain, we use bitcoin. We use digital assets to move forward, and Donald Trump is leading the way,” he added.

stablecoins as money, bitcoins as a valuable storage

Now, before you go and get too excited about Secretary Rutnick talking about “using” Bitcoin, know that in the bullish bitcoin story at the event, the Bitcoin words used as money are not spoken. Instead, it was simply called savings technology.

Stablecoins are solely in regards to digital assets that the administration considers as money.

Secretary Becent reinforced this message, and recently pushed both the first US press conference on digital assets and the first subcommittee on digital assets hearings at the summit.

“We’re going to put a lot of thought into the Stubcoin administration,” Secretary Bescent said. “And as President Trump has directed, we’re going to keep the world’s dominant reserve currency in the US (dollars), and we’ll use stablecoins to do that.”

(And before you go to Bescent, the secretary who holds your breath while you’re reading this, he also dropped the absolute banger of Pro Bitcoin one-liner at the event: “President Trump is creating assets for the American people, but most past presidents have created debts.”)

It was not discussed

Additionally, in a summit preview call with senior White House officials this morning, one of the officials dispelled rumors that the administration would remove capital gains tax from crypto sales (this also applies when using Bitcoin or crypto). (That wasn’t the case.)

Another thing that was not discussed at the summit was whether the US Marshall detained the Trump administration for proper audits of Bitcoin and other digital assets (last reported, but they clearly have little thought of what they have). Nor could the government plan to protect the private keys of Bitcoin held in the SBR. (I planned to ask about the latter, but the media members attending the event were not allowed to ask questions.)

But let’s not get lost in some of the current minor details here.

It was a good day

Instead, let’s queue up from Brian Armstrong and admit that today was a good day by many standards.

“It was a rather historic moment for the crypto industry,” Armstrong told Bitcoin magazine after the summit was over.

“President Trump really brought the industry to life. A few years ago, we felt like we were under attack and some people tried to kill the entire industry illegally. What a change in the ocean to be invited to the White House and welcome the most pro-cryptic president ever,” he added.

Armstrong also said he would like to see the law passed to make it concrete to make some of the specific Bitcoin and Crypto initiatives under the Trump administration.

“Congress has made great progress in this with Stablecoin and market structure legislation and hopes to codify this strategic Bitcoin reserve in the end.”