'Don’t sleep on the executive orders,' analysts warn ahead of Trump's memecoin gala and Vance's Bitcoin 2025 keynote

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has issued two executive orders focused on cryptocurrency. Despite multiple deadlines passing, the administration has yet to share any meaningful updates on their progress.

That could change within the next nine days, analysts at K33 say, pointing to upcoming crypto-related appearances by Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, with potential market implications.

Trump's first crypto-related executive order , issued on January 23, aimed to bolster U.S. dominance in the digital asset sector by forming a working group to assess existing regulations and guidance. The order set three deadlines: identify current guidance by February 22, recommend which standards to retain by March 24, and deliver a final report by July 22 outlining next steps for regulatory frameworks and criteria for a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile.

A second order , issued March 6, centered on creating a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, established from the approximate 200,000 BTC (worth $20 billion) already owned by the federal government that was forfeited as part of criminal or civil proceedings, minus those that still need to be returned to victims of crime. It required agencies to identify current crypto holdings by April 5 and tasked the Treasury with evaluating legal and budget-neutral investment considerations to acquire additional bitcoin for the reserve by May 5. Both deadlines have passed without public updates.

"Policy developments remain a key under-appreciated catalyst in the crypto market," K33 Head of Research Vetle Lunde and Senior Analyst David Zimmerman noted in a Tuesday report, adding "don't sleep on the executive orders."

While information on the executive orders has been sparse so far, President Trump's controversial memecoin gala on May 22 and Vice President JD Vance's keynote at Bitcoin 2025 on May 28 could shed some light on the situation, they said. 

"We believe the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve remains unappreciated by the market and expect information on this front to enforce robust BTC performance ahead," Lunde and Zimmerman said.

LEO's 'compelling' Strategic Bitcoin Reserve trade

The K33 analysts see Bitfinex's LEO token as one of the more "compelling" Strategic Bitcoin Reserve trades. They expect 94,636 BTC to be returned to Bitfinex from the U.S. government's seized bitcoin — connected to the crypto exchange's 2016 hack — and 75,700 of those coins to be used to buy and burn LEO. 

LEO, the debt token the exchange issued following the hack to help make up for customer losses, currently trades at a slight 0.15% discount to the net asset value for the first time since March 2024 after seeing premiums collapse from 40% in the past month. The K33 analysts see this as a buying opportunity, with the strong odds of Bitfinex's asset recovery positioning LEO for potential outperformance versus BTC.

Meanwhile, the analysts noted that bitcoin's third move above $100,000 has been met with muted trading activity, as traders stay cautious and risk-averse. However, the calm price action at this level suggests growing market acceptance, they argued, with noticeably less sell pressure than in previous breaks, signalling a bullish outlook.