On March 2, Trump announced that his digital asset executive order directs the presidential working group to advance a cryptocurrency strategy reserve including BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL and ADA.
However, this information is not entirely unexpected. At the end of January this year, Ripple CEO Garlinghouse confirmed that he had discussed the possibility of using XRP as a strategic reserve asset for the United States with Trump, and emphasized that the diversification of reserves should be ensured. Now it seems that this chess game has already begun to be laid out.
Stimulated by this news, the cryptocurrency market "fully revived" overnight. Among them, Cardano's ADA performed particularly eye-catching, with CoinGecko data showing that its 24-hour peak increase exceeded 78.1%, directly dominating the hot search list. However, in addition to the high market sentiment, there are also doubts: Cardano's technical strength and ecological development are slightly inferior to other selected assets, so why was it selected as a strategic reserve asset for the United States?
Ecological indicators are being crushed, policy BUFF is accused of being a relation?
Cardano holders have a relatively high long-term holding intention, with more than 60% choosing to lock up to support the network, which has also increased its network health. According to data from the staking data website Staking Rewards, Cardano is the fourth largest POS blockchain network, with a staking amount of $23.34 billion and a staking rate of 60.1%.
However, according to defillama data, as of March 3, Cardano's TVL is close to $508 million, the on-chain stablecoin market cap is $22.55 million, and the application revenue in the past 24 hours is only $3,024.
During the same period, Solana's TVL reached $8.38 billion, with a daily revenue of about $836,000. From the performance of ecological indicators, Cardano is relatively lagging behind among the selected assets, although the staking scale is amazing, but the staking of ADA has not been transformed into actual application in dApps, which means that its ecology still has a large blank to be filled.
"So does this mean we have to change our name to 'United States Digital Assets'?" Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson joked in his latest tweet.
In fact, the outside world has always given Cardano the title of "Japanese public chain", but Cardano is an American-made project, founded by American Charles Hoskinson, who was one of the original eight co-founders of Ethereum, and has invested a lot of money and energy in the fields of blockchain, longevity science, and space exploration.
In 2014, after leaving Ethereum due to differences with Vitalik Buterin on the development direction of the product, Hoskinson founded Input Output Global, headquartered in the United States, and launched Cardano. The reason why Cardano is so popular in the Japanese market, even known as the "Japanese Ethereum", is largely related to its early financing model.
It is reported that nearly 95% of the buyers in Cardano's public offering came from Japanese investors, and it was also known as "retirement investment", mainly because this public offering was led by the Japanese company Emurgo. At that time, the regulatory environment in Japan was relatively loose compared to Europe and the United States, which also led to Cardano being misunderstood as a Japanese project. But with the gradual opening of US crypto policy, Cardano is gradually fading its Japanese impression.
As for the market's speculation on Cardano's selection as a strategic reserve asset, many people guess that it is not based on technology, but on the close contact it has established with the US government, especially the founder Charles Hoskinson has hinted many times. For example, in November 2024, when Charles Hoskinson was rumored to be considered by Trump to be appointed as a crypto policy advisor, he revealed in a dialogue that he had a close relationship with a member of the Trump team.
He said he would work with lawmakers and the government to push for the passage of a bipartisan bill. Input Output Global, the research and development company of Cardano, plans to establish a cryptocurrency regulatory policy office in early 2025 and plans to contact "some key leaders in certain critical positions" of the US government to promote the legislative agenda related to cryptocurrencies and securities and commodities. However, as of now, the specific progress of this plan has not been made public, and there is no evidence that he has been officially employed by the US government.
Charles Hoskinson also clarified on March 2 that "no one was appointed to a role related to cryptocurrencies by the executive branch tonight, the meeting does not mean recognition or conferring magical new powers, the legislative process is like this, it takes time and effort. I will not comment on this topic again until there is exact and substantive information about the legislative process, this information must be related to the formulation of new laws to enable the industry to survive and thrive in the United States."
From academic faction to Bitcoin aide, Cardano is more narrative-focused
The narrative is flowing, and Cardano is steadfast.
Cardano has become one of the market's hotspot targets in recent times due to multiple market dynamics. For example, ADA is the third-largest holding in Grayscale's Smart Contract Fund, accounting for 18.23%; Grayscale's spot Cardano ETF application has been accepted by the US SEC; Cardano plans to integrate Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin to enhance its DeFi ecosystem and provide broader use cases for RLUSD.
Recently, Charles Hoskinson also revealed that Input Output Global (IOG) will focus on developing the Bitcoin DeFi ecosystem by 2025. The team plans to collaborate with multi-party computation protocol developer Fair Gate Labs, aiming to launch a demo version before the Bitcoin conference in May 2025. Fair Gate Labs' technology will form the foundation of BitcoinOS, and cross-chain transactions will only require Bitcoin without the need for additional tokens.
This strategic reserve policy bonus has undoubtedly provided further policy support for Cardano and brought new capital flows and attention to the market.
Reviewing Cardano's development, it has always been adept at constructing eye-catching narratives to shape a unique market image and leveraging external events to increase market attention, from being a "research-driven third-generation blockchain" to the "green Ethereum killer" and now the new role of "Bitcoin Layer2".
However, from the initial academic stance to the current "Bitcoin sidekick," while Cardano has been successful in narrative evolution, the actual application issues behind it remain its biggest weakness. It remains to be seen whether Cardano can break the existing impression of being a bull market-limited illusion, even with the "tailwind of US policy."
Suspected to be just a paper tiger, the execution path remains a mystery
Regarding the inclusion of altcoins like ADA in the strategic reserve assets by Trump, in addition to the suspicion of interest transfer, the implementation method, timeline, specific scale, and funding source are still unclear, and the market believes it is more at the intention stage, with the execution being a mystery.
Taproot Wizards founder Udi Wertheimer believes that "so far, the best take I've seen on the strategic reserve is that it's just Trump's typical negotiation tactic. To actually establish a reserve, Trump would need to convince Congress, as he can't decide on his own. Whenever Trump needs to convince other stakeholders, he always starts with an outrageous claim, which he can then walk back later. So, in Trump's chess game language, this just means he's telling Congress that if they don't agree to a Bitcoin reserve, he'll propose even more outrageous conditions."
BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes points out that "there's nothing new here, just empty talk. Tell me when they get Congressional approval to borrow money or raise the price of gold. Without that, they don't have the money to buy Bitcoin and altcoins."
Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong believes that "investing solely in Bitcoin may be the best choice - it's the simplest and has a clear logic as the successor to gold; if people want more diversification, they can build a market cap-weighted crypto asset index to maintain impartiality."
