He explains why the justification for such a reserve falls apart under scrutiny and argues crypto is a distraction from more pressing matters, like tariffs and entitlement programs.

Peter sums up the havoc that preceded Trump's announcement. All crypto was sinking last week, not just Bitcoin:

But when I did the podcast on Tuesday, Bitcoin had just slipped into a technical bear market. It was down 20% from its 109,000 post-election peak, which happened, I think, in November last year. We were trading around 87,000. We had been below 86 earlier. By Friday morning, Bitcoin almost broke below 78,000. So it was close to a 30% decline from top to bottom at that point. But other tokens– Ethereum almost got below 2,000. It got below 2,100. So it was down 50%. I mean, MicroStrategy was getting obliterated, down over 50%. And that was after blowing another 2 billion, buying more Bitcoin just before the market tank. … All the altcoins, everything was getting smoked in crypto.

Trump's play would be obviously illegal in other contexts. Peter argues that while traditional stock manipulation would be met with harsh penalties, crypto manipulation remains in a legal gray area:

If Trump was manipulating stocks, it'd be illegal. He could be impeached if he was giving his family members inside information. 'Hey, I'm going to put a post out about this particular stock, so you should buy it now or you should short it because it's going to be a negative post.' And then they position themselves to profit. He comes out and he posts something and the market tanks or goes up and his kids sell out. It'd be totally illegal. But since he's doing it with crypto, I guess it's completely legal. You can manipulate the crypto market. I guess it's not a crime. You can pump and dump all you want, even if you're the president of the United States.

Peter questions the rationale behind the selective backing of Bitcoin over others coins. He points out the inherent absurdity of a government reserve that picks winners while ignoring equally viable alternatives:

And what is the argument for a ripple reserve or a solana reserve or any of these other cryptos that they want to put in there? And if you can say, well, we should have a reserve with solana or cardano. Well, you know, why not dogecoin? Why not throw it in there? What about fartcoin? …  I mean, think of all the valuable assets that are out there that we don't have a reserve of. I mean, all we have, we have a gold reserve and an oil reserve. That's it. I mean, we don't have a wheat reserve– or corn or soybeans. We don't have a copper reserve. We don't have a reserve of stocks.