[Digital Today reporter Jinju Hong] Investment manager Lawrence Lepard raised the possibility that the Trump administration could carry out a radical currency reset centered on bitcoin (BTC) and gold.

On Jan. 28 local time, blockchain outlet The Crypto Basic said Lepard recently appeared on the cryptocurrency podcast "What Bitcoin Did" and argued that bitcoin and gold could become core assets in a future monetary system, not merely speculative assets.

In Lepard's scenario, the value of bitcoin and gold is officially revalued by the state. Specifically, bitcoin would be reset at $1 million per coin and gold at $30,000 per ounce, and citizens would be allowed to exchange dollars for bitcoin or gold at those prices. He described it as an extreme choice to respond to a falling dollar and fiscal instability, and said it could drive a surge in asset prices against the dollar in a short period.

Lepard said the United States faces a choice between enduring long-term inflation and social tensions, or resetting the monetary system itself. He explained that if led by President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, such steps could effectively end the fiat currency system that has persisted since 1971 and trigger the overnight introduction of a new monetary order based on tangible, hard assets.

He acknowledged that such a transition could deliver a massive shock to bondholders and would be likely to entail severe economic pain at the outset. That is because the real value of debt could be sharply eroded. Even so, he argued it could lead over the long term to a more stable and sound monetary system.

Market reaction to the remarks is mixed. Some experts see it as an unavoidable one-off measure to break a vicious cycle of inflation and rising debt, while others caution that there are few historical cases in which a large-scale currency reset has worked smoothly. Some also criticize it as no more than a short-term fix that would not resolve fundamental problems in fiscal and monetary policy.

Lepard himself also put the scenario's likelihood at a low level of about 10 percent. He questioned whether the current administration has the political and institutional capacity to implement such radical change. Trump has signed an executive order related to a strategic bitcoin reserve, but he has never officially mentioned a currency reset plan based on bitcoin and gold.

In asset markets, gold is showing a stronger trend than bitcoin. Since the start of this year, gold has risen 21.6 percent and at one point hit $5,262, while bitcoin is up 1.58 percent and remains around $88,899. Against that backdrop, Lepard's U.S.-driven "currency reset" scenario is drawing market attention as a contentious hypothesis.