 US Bitcoin reserve odds skyrocket on betting markets 
2025-01-18
Category: None

The odds of US President-elect Donald Trump establishing a strategic Bitcoin BTCUSD reserve after taking office on Jan. 20 are soaring, at least on betting markets Kalshi and Polymarket.
Bettors on Kalshi, a US derivatives exchange, set the probability of Trump creating a US BTC reserve in 2026 at nearly 70%. Users on Polymarket, a cryptocurrency prediction platform, predict a 42% chance Trump will do so in his first 100 days. 
Odds on both betting platforms are up roughly 20% from early January lows, the data shows. Bettors also expect BTC and Ether ETHUSD to hit record highs in 2025. 
Prediction markets work by letting users trade contracts tied to specific events, with prices fluctuating dynamically based on expected outcomes. 
Polymarket and Kalshi rose to prominence in the runup to the US elections in November, with upward of $4 billion in trading volume tied to the US presidential race alone. They proved to be more accurate than traditional polling, forecasting not only Trump’s win but also his party’s sweep of the US House and Senate. 
Big promises
In July, Trump pledged to create “a strategic national Bitcoin reserve” during the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee, adding that his administration would never sell off the US government’s Bitcoin holdings.
In November, US Senator Cynthia Lummis, long known as the “Crypto Queen” of Capitol Hill, proposed the BITCOIN Act, which would establish a US Bitcoin reserve by requiring the Treasury Department to buy 1 million BTC over 5 years. 
Trump has doubled down on his pro-crypto rhetoric in recent weeks, raising hopes in the industry that the president-elect will deliver on his promises. 
On Jan. 16, the New York Post reported that Trump is receptive to expanding a possible reserve to include a broader basket of cryptocurrencies, including USD Coin (USDC), Solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP). 
Trump also reportedly plans to sign an executive order designating crypto as a national priority that could come as soon as he reenters office on Jan. 20.
Establishing a BTC reserve in the US would accelerate Bitcoin’s adoption even more than 2024’s exchange-traded fund (ETF) launches, cryptocurrency researcher CoinShares said in a Jan. 10 blog post. 
“We believe that the enactment of the Bitcoin Act in the United States would have a more profound long-term impact on Bitcoin than the launch of ETFs,” CoinShares said.