«Bitcoin is the only really decentralized cryptocurrency,» says Baxter. The inclusion of Altcoins would open the door to protocol changes and possible external pressures. President Donald Trump announced on March 2, 2025 the creation of a strategic reserve of cryptoactive in the United States that will include Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (Eth), Solana (Sol), Ada (Cardano) and XRP of Ripple. In that context, Will Baxter, Executive Vice President of the Bitcoin Czech Mining Pool, Brains, said the initiative should focus «only on Bitcoin.» Baxter argues that adding Altcoins is a mistake that could affect both the national security of the US and the reliability of the plan, and exposes a series of technical observations that support their position.
“President Trump confirmed that the United States will have a crypto reserve. Unfortunately, it will include XRP, Solana, Ethereum and Cardano … Include Altcoins (especially XRP) is a big mistake … The reserve should be only from Bitcoin. ” Will Baxter, executive vice president of Brains.
Will Baxter, Brains Executive Vice President, considers that the US strategic reserve should be only from Bitcoin. Source: X.
The foundation of true decentralization
According to Baxter, «Bitcoin is the only truly decentralized cryptocurrency, without a founding team that controls or decides its development.» To strengthen this idea, the Brainsi Executive highlights that Ethereum, Solana or XRP, although they are systems that have a certain degree of decentralization, respond significantly to the management of foundations or companies with broad influence on governance and development processes. For example, the native network of the XRP ecosystem, the XRP LEDger (XRPL), uses a consensus mechanism based on a list of reliable nodes, known as the list of unique nodes (Unique Node List, UNL). These nodes, operated only by selected and permitted entities, validate transactions and agree on the state of the network accounting book. Ripple, the company that created XRP, plays a central role here: historically, many of these nodes have operated and publishes a default UNL that users usually adopt. Although anyone can operate a node and create their own trust list, in practice, Most depend on the list suggested by Ripple. Additionally, Ripple is the main software developer that supports the XRPL. They propose and execute updates to the protocol, such as the introduction of new functions. According to the Brains manager, the centralization of these assets represents a vulnerability if it is intended to constitute a reserve Strategic value for a country, as the existence of a central organ could lead to unforeseen changes or external pressures that alter the rules of the network.
NATIONAL SECURITY AND SECURITY IN THE NETWORK
Baxter emphasizes that the most vulnerable networks to centralization can be used as a weapon by governments, using the censorship. For him, Bitcoin has «a robust global mining and nodes network» that prevents it from being easily manipulated by a single actor or group. The Bitcoin network cannot be easily manipulated due to its decentralization, which distributes control between numerous non -permitted global nodes, and its work proof consensus algorithm (POW), which requires a large number of computational resources to validate transactions. In addition, the size and distribution of the network make an attack extremely expensive and difficult to execute. Transparency of transactions and economic incentives for miners also contribute to maintaining the safety and integrity of the network, making manipulation unlikely and not profitable. In contrast, the director of the Mining Pool questioned the «centralization in the development» of Ethereum. As cryptootics reported, its growth and promotion are mainly driven by the Ethereum Foundation, which It occupies an important role in the updates of its protocol. Baxter also criticized the interruptions that the Solana network sometimes records. In the case of XRP, Baxter recalls, the first 32,000 blocks of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) chain are not even available, which, in your opinion, Subtrands of Transparency. Criticism about the lack of transparency in the first 32,000 XRPL blocks refers to the fact that these initial blocks are not completely documented or available for public review. This means that there is a part of the XRP transactions history that It is not verifiablewhich generates uncertainty about the integrity and transparency of the network since its inception. Regarding this, from Ripple they have explained that the absence of registration on the blocks occurred due to «a server error.» Thus, according to Baxter's reasoning, the inclusion of these cryptocurrencies represents an unnecessary risk for the reliability of the reserve.
Dao hacking lessons and the risk of network modifications
As an additional point, Baxter mentions the precedent of hacking to Dao in Ethereum, where, after the subtraction of around 60 million dollars, a retroactive modification (rollback) of the block chain was made. A retroactive modification refers to the decision of the Ethereum community to carry out a hard bifurcation (Hard Fork) to reverse malicious transactions and return stolen funds to original investors. This involved dividing the block chain into two: a new chain that undone the hacking (Ethereum) and another that continued unchanged (Ethereum Classic). This action was very controversial because Immutability is a key feature of block chains, and reverse transactions goes against this principle. Along the same lines, members of the cryptocurrency community requested the same measure after the recent hacking to Exchange Bybit, in which around 1.5 billion dollars were stolen. This possibility, Baxter argues, highlights that Ethereum and other projects with less decentralized government mechanisms may suffer external pressures so that changes that violate the immutability of its chain. In his opinion, this flexibility could become an Achilles heel if the network is part of a national value reserve.
«The United States does not need a» crypt «reserve. You need a Bitcoin reserve. Bitcoin is for digital assets what gold is for precious metals: the base that matters. Everything else is speculation in the best case, and a scam at the worst. ” Will Baxter, executive vice president of Brains.
The distribution of assets, another advantage for Bitcoin
Baxter emphasizes that Bitcoin was launched «without pre-mining», unlike some of the most popular altcoins. In the case of Ethereum, he points out that «around 70% of the initial supply was pre-sold,» while Solana is backed by large investors and risk capitals that hold an outstanding participation. Similarly, Ripple, the company behind XRP, retains at least almost 40% of the supply of that token. This initial supply concentration has deep implications. An unequal distribution could Facilitate market manipulation or biased decision -making in favor of a few actors. For a strategic reserve, where stability and equity are essential, Baxter argues that only Bitcoin meets the standard of a transparent and accessible launch, avoiding the disproportionate advantages that certain actors possess over the Altcoins.
Real volume of use and fixed supply
Ultimately, for Baxter it is essential that the reservation is composed of an asset with high real adoption, since «while Bitcoin liquidates around 30,000 million dollars per day,» other cryptocurrencies move mainly in speculative environments. He also adds that Bitcoin has a limited and known total emission, and that these rules remain unchanged by consensus. On the other hand, Ethereum has changed its issuance policy with updates such as the improvement proposal 1559 (EIP-1559, August 2021), which, in Baxter's opinion, hinders an exhaustive audit of the total supply.
