Trump-Appointed Individual Makes Crypto Strategic Reserve Shortlist, Is Cardano Riding on an "Air" Narrative Relying Solely on Connections?
Original Title: "Trump Specifically Mentioned in US Cryptocurrency Strategic Reserve Selection, How Does Cardano Use Narrative to Create Bull Market Illusion?"
Original Author: Nancy, PANews
Through the ups and downs of the crypto market cycle, the veteran public blockchain Cardano always seems to have a built-in BUFF, performing exceptionally well. In this current cycle, Cardano has undergone a transformation, anchoring its narrative to Bitcoin's L2, and more recently, it has been frequently hitting the headlines with multiple identities such as the US cryptocurrency reserve asset, ETF application target, and a popular choice for institutional allocation, boosting its presence to the maximum.
Ecosystem Indicators Crushed by Policy BUFF, Alleged Relationship Building
On March 2, Trump tweeted announcing that his digital assets executive order directed the President's Working Group to advance a cryptocurrency strategic reserve including BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL, and ADA. However, this news was not entirely unexpected. In late January of this year, Ripple CEO Garlinghouse confirmed having discussed with Trump the possibility of XRP becoming a US strategic reserve asset, emphasizing the need for reserve diversification. It now appears that this game had already begun.
Stimulated by this news, the crypto market experienced an "overnight resurrection." Among them, Cardano's ADA performance was particularly eye-catching. According to CoinGecko data, its highest surge in 24 hours exceeded 78.1%, directly topping the trending searches. However, amidst the high market sentiment, there were also doubts raised: compared to other selected assets, Cardano's technical strength and ecosystem development seem slightly inferior, so why was it chosen as a US reserve asset?

Cardano holders have a higher long-term holding intention, with over 60% choosing to stake and support the network, which has also increased the network's health. According to data from the staking website Staking Rewards, Cardano is the fourth-largest POS blockchain network, with a staked amount of $23.34 billion and a staking ratio of 60.1%.

However, according to DeFillama data, as of March 3, Cardano's TVL is nearly $508 million, on-chain stablecoin market value is $22.55 million, and the application revenue in the past 24 hours is only $3,024. In contrast, Solana's TVL reached as high as $8.38 billion, with daily revenue of approximately $836,000. Looking at ecosystem performance indicators, Cardano lags behind among the selected assets. Despite its impressive staking scale, the staked ADA has not translated into actual dApp usage, indicating that its ecosystem still has significant white space to fill.

So does this mean we have to rename ourselves to "American Digital Assets"? Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson quipped in a recent tweet.
In fact, the outside world has always referred to Cardano as the "Japanese public chain," but Cardano is a U.S.-based project founded by American Charles Hoskinson, who was one of the original eight co-founders of Ethereum and has invested heavily in blockchain, longevity science, space exploration, and other areas. In 2014, after leaving Ethereum due to disagreements over its development direction with Vitalik Buterin, Hoskinson founded Input Output Global based in the United States and launched Cardano. While Cardano has been touted as the "Japanese Ethereum" in the Japanese market, much of its early popularity there was due to its initial fundraising model. It is reported that almost 95% of buyers in Cardano's public sale were Japanese investors, also known as "retirement investments." This was mainly because the public sale was led by the Japanese company Emurgo, and at that time, Japan's regulatory environment was relatively more lenient compared to Europe and the U.S., leading to Cardano being mistakenly perceived as a Japanese project. However, with the gradual opening up of U.S. crypto policies, Cardano is gradually shedding its Japanese image.
As for the market's speculation on Cardano's inclusion in strategic asset reserves, many people speculate that this is not due to its technology but rather its close ties with the U.S. government, especially as hinted at by founder Charles Hoskinson several times. For example, in November 2024, amid rumors that Charles Hoskinson was being considered by Trump as a cryptocurrency policy advisor, he hinted in a conversation that he has a close relationship with a member of the Trump team. He stated that he would work with legislators and the government to push through a bipartisan bill. Input Output Global, the development company behind Cardano, plans to establish a cryptocurrency regulatory policy office in early 2025 and intends to engage with "key leaders in certain positions in the U.S. government" to advance legislation agendas related to cryptocurrency 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 formally hired by the U.S. government.

On March 2, Charles Hoskinson also clarified, "No one has been appointed to any executive role related to cryptocurrency tonight, and the meeting does not imply endorsement or confer magical new powers. That's just how the legislative process works; it takes time and effort. Until there is exact and meaningful news about the legislative process, I will not comment on this topic again. This news must be about crafting new laws to make the industry survive and thrive in the U.S."
From Academicism to Bitcoin Sidekick, Cardano Revisits Hot Topics
A flowing narrative, a Cardano made of iron.
Recently, several market dynamics of Cardano have made it one of the hot topics of market attention. For example, ADA is among the top three weighted assets in Grayscale's Smart Contract Fund's latest holdings, accounting for 18.23%; Grayscale's application for a Cardano spot ETF has been accepted by the U.S. SEC; Cardano plans to integrate Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin to enhance its own DeFi ecosystem and provide broader use cases for RLUSD, among other developments.
Furthermore, not long ago, 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 the multi-party computation protocol developer Fair Gate Labs, with the goal of releasing a demo version before the Bitcoin conference in May 2025. The technology developed by Fair Gate Labs will be the foundation of BitcoinOS, requiring no additional token issuance, and enabling cross-chain transactions using only Bitcoin. The project will also collaborate with community projects and wallet service providers to achieve the goal of "awakening a sleeping giant."
This leverage of the strategic reserve policy undoubtedly further brought additional policy support to Cardano, providing new fund flows and attention in the market.
Looking back at Cardano's development journey, through several rounds of market baptism, Cardano has always been adept at constructing attention-grabbing narratives to shape a unique market image and increase market attention through external events.
From its origins as a "research-driven third-generation blockchain" to the environmentally friendly label of the "Ethereum Killer," and to the ecosystem moment of smart contract deployment, it has now transformed into a new role as a "Bitcoin Layer2." These narratives are sometimes not entirely based on the technology itself but are more driven by external events and public opinion. Especially, bull market cycles often amplify its potential and, with its strong pumping capability, quickly make it the focus of market attention.
However, from its initial academicism to today's Bitcoin "sidekick," despite Cardano's success in narrative evolution, the practical application issues behind it remain its biggest weakness. With the added boost from the "U.S. policy bandwagon," whether Cardano can break the inherent impression under the illusion of past bull market constraints still remains to be seen.
Alleged Empty Promise, Mystery Surrounds Execution Plan
However, regarding altcoins such as ADA being called out by Trump to be included in the strategic reserve assets, apart from the criticism of vested interests, the implementation method, timeline, specific scale, and funding source are still unclear. The market believes that it is mostly at the intention stage, with the execution plan being a mystery.
Udi Wertheimer, founder of Taproot Wizards, believes, "So far, the best view I've seen about the strategic reserve is that this is just a typical Trump negotiation strategy. To truly build a reserve, Trump has to convince Congress; he can't decide alone. Whenever Trump needs to persuade other stakeholders, he always starts with a ludicrous claim that he can retract later. Therefore, in Trump's chess game language, this just means he is telling Congress, if you don't agree to a Bitcoin reserve, I'll have to propose even more outlandish terms."
Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, pointed out, "There's nothing new here, just talks. Tell me when they get congressional approval to borrow money or raise the price of gold. Without these, they don't have the money to buy Bitcoin and altcoins."
"Investing in Bitcoin alone may be the best option - the simplest, and as the heir to gold, the logic behind it is also clear; if people want a more diversified option, they can build a market-cap-weighted crypto asset index to maintain its impartiality," said Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO of Coinbase.
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