Will Trump actually establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve in his first year?
268
1kṀ130k
Feb 1
32%
chance

Context:

Resolution Criteria:

  • Resolves YES if:

    1. Donald Trump is elected president in November 2024, AND

    2. Within 1 year of his inauguration, his administration: signs an executive order, or passes legislation, or otherwise officially establishes a US strategic reserve of Bitcoin or other crypto

    3. Actual crypto must be acquired and held for reserve purposes.

  • Resolves NO if:

    1. Trump is elected, but the above conditions are not met within 1 year of inauguration.

  • Resolves N/A if:

    1. Donald Trump is not elected president in November 2024.

Notes:

  • The total amount of cryptocurrency in the reserve does not affect the resolution.

  • Merely starting the legal process is not sufficient for a YES resolution; the reserve must be actually established and holding Bitcoin or other crypto.

  • If the reserve holds Ethereum or other currencies, instead of Bitcoin, this would still resolve as YES. CBDC does not count for YES resolution.

  • Update 2025-03-07 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Important Updates:

    • The source of cryptocurrency is irrelevant. Coins that are moved into the reserve, whether seized or newly acquired, will count.

    • A valid YES resolution requires that the reserve is established with coins being held inside, regardless of how those coins originally came into government hands.

  • Update 2025-03-07 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Access to Assets Clarification:

    • The reserve will count seized cryptocurrency only if the government actually has control (i.e. access to the private keys) and is able to move these assets to the strategic reserve.

    • Simply seizing hardware without the cryptographic keys does not qualify for a YES resolution.

  • Update 2025-06-21 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The market will resolve YES if the US government is holding a large amount of cryptocurrency (e.g. from seizures) and an official government source confirms this control. A formal declaration of a 'strategic reserve' is not required.

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Very glad I sold this one early.

The fact that this market is still open means the criteria hasn't been met yet.

@TheAllMemeingEye I genuinely don't know

sold Ṁ1,234 YES

@JasonQ taking profit so I don’t have to pay attention to the inevitable squabbling even though the given criteria were met.

@PeterBuyukliev

They are still asking the Treasury to produce reports on the feasibility of the the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve: https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-lawmakers-seek-treasury-report-ironing-out-details-bitcoin-reserve
This bill was introduced in September:

The Secretary of the Treasury is directed to issue a report … on the practicability of establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile…

Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall submit a report … outlining the Secretary… plan for the secure and efficient custody of the digital assets acquired by the Federal government, including assets held under the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and the U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile


This fox business interview with the Treasury Secretary was in August.

I don't think a Bitcoin Reserve exists yet.

@Simon74fe I don't believe that the reserve existing matters looking at the rules?

The rules are:

  1. Within 1 year of his inauguration, his administration: signs an executive order, or passes legislation, or otherwise officially establishes a US strategic reserve of Bitcoin or other crypto.

  2. Actual crypto must be acquired and held for reserve purposes.

    Rule 2 states that just signing an executive order is enough. Even in the article you linked above, it states "In March, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a digital asset stockpile, which would use crypto confiscated by the government to establish both funds."

    My understanding was that the debate was on whether the US government actually held Bitcoin?

@Bill_ They have been holding Bitcoin already before Trump from confiscations.

This condition specifically is not yet met in my view:

the reserve must be actually established and holding Bitcoin or other crypto

@Simon74fe this is a compelling piece of evidence in defense of no YES yet to me. interesting

boughtṀ3,000YES

@PeterBuyukliev

Did you remove my comment from earlier?

Care to explain why you're betting in your own market on a highly subjective resolution, and moving the odds from 6% to 87%?

sold Ṁ592 YES

@bens Have you seen the video that was shared here just yesterday? and the subsequent discussion about why the market moved?

@No_uh it’s just straightforwardly not good when the market is based on the subjective interpretation of the market creator, and the market creator themself shifts the odds that much.

@bens I wish you would've answered my question instead of this.

Nevertheless, what is being left to the subjective interpretation of the market creator here?

It had been established earlier (months ago) the remaining criteria to be fulfilled is actually determining if the reserve held any assets, and you can find little disagreement in the comments because (I can only assume) it was unclear to all of us if the reserve actually did hold assets because reporting about it was extremely vague and limited. Just yesterday the Treasury Secretary said it did (and even included how much!) much in a live broadcast.

I must be misunderstanding something? Did i misread somewhere or miss something?

@No_uh There are infinitely many domains of subjectivity upon which the resolution of this market hinges.

What if the bitcoin is seized but not actually moved into the reserve?

What if only the White House sources report this, but it's not confirmed independently?

What if the Bitcoin is announced to be placed into the reserve but won't actually be placed into it until next year?

What if the seized assets aren't actually crypto, but are placed into the reserve anyway? What if it's a crypto ETF?

This is why creators should not trade on their own markets unless the criteria are 99th percentile airtight, which these very clearly aren't. Especially since the market clearly thought, based on the creator's earlier clarifications, that the subjective resolution was trending towards NO, rather than YES, until the creator demonstrated their intent by shifting the betting odds by 80%.

@bens i will wait to see what peter says in response to this

@bens I agree it’s a bad look but:

  • Resolves YES if:

    1. Donald Trump is elected president in November 2024, -> this happened

    2. Within 1 year of his inauguration, his administration: signs an executive order [which] officially establishes a US strategic reserve of Bitcoin -> this happened

    3. Actual crypto must be held for reserve purposes… and an official government source confirms this -> this happened

I don’t think these are “highly subjective”? Those other options you mention are possible but these are the resolution criteria as set here.

I do agree it’s bad for the platform for the creator to do that but what is laid out as criteria has happened.

If the criteria were different jt might not make sense to resolve it yet but we can only trade on the criteria we have.

@JasonQ Clearly the criteria were subjective, because the market had priced their expectation of the creator's resolution at 6% until the creator themself signaled that they intended to resolve it YES by buying 3000 shares of YES.

I've been on here for a long time and even markets where creators (including myself) think they've laid out very explicit criteria can end up in weird edge cases. In fact, it's more the rule than the exception.

@bens The market creator bought those shares after seeing the video which literally satisfied the market resolution criteria, Ben.

Let's get the timeline right:

criteria outlined via creation, and subsequent comments/questions months ago

market creator bought up to relatively high % on news that the reserve was created via executive order

it trickled down over time as little information about actual holdings could be found

somebody shares a link from a fox business segment where the literal treasury secretary says explicitly how much in value the reserve has

market creator sees it

buys the market up to 80+%

i dont want to be rude to you but your comment is kinda disparaging toward the market creator. the creator (just like any other trader) responded to news/updated information like any of us.

Please tell me if I'm off-base here.

not only that, but asked us traders if we had any qualms with the evidence provided before resolving too!! which they probably didn't even have to do tbh

@bens

1) I didn't delete your comment. I am not a mod, I don't think I can do that.

2) @No_uh pretty much explained my reasoning (thank you), but I'll go over it again.

The source that Jason shared, in my view, is sufficient to immediately resolve this market as YES. I really see no ambiguity; but instead of resolving immediately, I gave people the opportunity to speak up. Would you have felt better if I immediately closed+resolved this market?

If anyone has anything substantive to share, I am very much willing to change my view on the resolution; but nobody has spoken up so far.

3) Are you implying that I'm corrupt over like 3$ of virtual currency that I cannot cash out?

4) Why the market was at 6% - I have no earthly idea. Perhaps some people were confusing the resolution criteria with Kalshi's market.

@bens in any case, if you are unsatisfied with this market, you can

1) give arguments why I should resolve as NO, and I promise I'll consider them

2) complain to the mods in the discord or by tagging them here

@PeterBuyukliev oh my bad, sorry for accusing you of deleting the comment. I wrote a comment and sent it, but like 1% of the time, Manifold's backend swallows up the comment and doesn't post it for some reason.

I hold no shares in this market (I think I bought and sold some shares in March), so I'm not personally motivated by the resolution.

I am in fact a mod, so I'd be complaining to myself. I would advise next time, that if you thought that evidence was sufficient to resolve YES, you might close the market and resolve it. You get back all the liquidity you'd be buying through in any case (although it's not profit, but just raw mana). It's a little late now, but in many cases, people get angry at creators who are the largest holders in their own markets resolving them against their personal belief on how the markets should resolve.

@bens

Clearly the criteria were subjective, because the market had priced their expectation of the creator's resolution at 6%

I genuinely think people just thought this was like the Kalshi and Polymarket ones that required purchase of new BTC. Multiple Manifold markets on the topic already resolved YES despite trending lower than they should have, for example:

https://manifold.markets/predyx_markets/trump-creates-bitcoin-reserve-in-10

You personally moved that probability there by 30% or so. I don’t think it’s far fetched to think people were undervaluing this in the same way and you profited from that there.

@JasonQ @PeterBuyukliev Polymarket also does not explicitly require purchase and is trading at 15%

This market will resolve to "Yes" if the US government holds any amount of Bitcoin in its reserves at any point between January 1, 2025, ET and December 31, 2025, 11:59 PM ET. Otherwise, this market will resolve to "No". Note that the US government confiscating Bitcoin does not count as holding Bitcoin reserves. The primary resolution source for this market will be official information from the US government and/or the US federal reserve, however a consensus of credible reporting will also be used.

@Simon74fe

Note that the US government confiscating Bitcoin does not count as holding Bitcoin reserves.

That is the crucial difference. Compare with this market:

  • The source of cryptocurrency is irrelevant. Coins that are moved into the reserve, whether seized or newly acquired, will count.

@PeterBuyukliev As I understand it, the source is also irrelevant for Polymarket. But they have to be moved into some official reserve, not just acquired via confiscation. Polymarket has traded at 75% before, and this was definitely not because people thought there was a 75% chance of them buying Bitcoin (any new country buying Bitcoin was trading below 60% at that time)

@Simon74fe

Note that the US government confiscating Bitcoin does not count as holding Bitcoin reserves

It’s literally this line. The confiscated ones they used don’t count there but do here.

I also disagree with your assessment of the psychology there but that’s outside the scope as, again, multiple Manifold markets without that stipulation about confiscated BTC already resolved. Another is here:

https://manifold.markets/nick/will-trump-create-a-national-bitcoi

So if we want to play the “this other market is going X way” game that should be considered too.

@JasonQ If they moved previously confiscated Bitcoin into a strategic reserve it would count as well

@Simon74fe Here yes, on polymarket no. You can see people talking about this in their comments. It's clearly a no.

But if you still think it would, then I'd recommend going to poly and buying dollars for the price of like 6 cents! incredible offer right now!

@Simon74fe I’m not convinced that is true based on all of the discussions in their comments, which are the exact thing driving their pricing there. Since your argument is market sentiment based and not based on anything about this market we are in or it’s criteria, look at what they think about it in many comments there.

@Simon74fe by the way here is a third example which resolved YES here but not on the equivalent Polymarket:

https://manifold.markets/AaronSimansky/what-will-happen-within-donald-trum

For some of these other markets, one can argue that a reserve exists already. But both this market ("the reserve must be actually established and holding Bitcoin or other crypto") and Polymarket ("holds any amount of Bitcoin in its reserves") require that there is crypto in the reserve. And in my view that's not the case yet. So I would also not go to Polymarket and buy 'Yes' at this time

@Simon74fe yes but, once again, in polymarket the bitcoin cannot be seized/confiscated bitcoin whereas in this market it can! and Bessent has explicitly said 2 things in the same interview: 1) they will not be buying bitcoin for the reserve and 2) there is currently somewhere between 15-20 billion worth of bitcoin in it currently.

these two statements explain the discrepancy.

@No_uh I don't think any bitcoin has yet officially been moved into the reserve, and I think Polymarket traders think the same

opened a Ṁ25 YES at 20% order

@Simon74fe well, the Treasury Secretary says it holds $15-20 Billion BTC currently which is an official source as outlined in the criteria.

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