Trump remains keen on strategic crypto reserve with aim of making US industry leader

President-elect Donald Trump said during the election he wanted to create a federal bitcoin reserve; now, he appears to believe a strategic cryptocurrency reserve could be necessary if the United States wants to secure its place as the industry leader in digital assets.

"You're embracing crypto," said CNBC's Jim Cramer told Trump when interviewing him on television Thursday. Cramer then asked: "Strategic petroleum reserve-like for crypto?"

"I think so," Trump answered. "We're gonna do something great with crypto, 'cause we don't want China, or anybody else, not just China, others are embracing it, and we want to be the head."

Since the final stages of this year's presidential election, Trump has increasingly leaned into supporting crypto despite being skeptical of digital assets in previous years. Then, in July, Trump won the support of many crypto advocates when he said he'd fire SEC chair Gary Gensler in addition to creating a “strategic bitcoin reserve” if elected. After that, a Trump-backed crypto project called World Liberty Financial was launched.

Bitcoin's price has been on the upswing since Trump won the election last month. The president-elect would also "love” for bitcoin to reach $150,000 during his presidency, according to a report from Axios this week.

Since the election, bitcoin has jumped from about $68,000 to as much as $103,000. As of 11:00 a.m. ET, bitcoin was trading at $101,741.52, according to The Block Price Page .