Can anyone who is pro-crypto (particularly: btc, eth) make the steelman argument for why a "strategic reserve" is necessary for these cryptocurrencies? Or even beneficial? I've been involved in the industry in various ways for years and I fundamentally don't understand why the government owning a lot of btc/eth is advantageous. I understand the "reserve" part, but I don't understand the "strategic."
I'm open to the idea that this could be both a good idea and a way to line insiders' pockets with US taxpayer money, but it really just looks like the latter to me.
(I've been able to come up with a few theories but they all involve the complete destruction of value of the US dollar, and I don't understand how that would be net good for America.)
The best case is an argument similar to the reason the US gold reserve exists. While the gold no longer directly backs the currency, gold is a neutral asset and wouldn't go to zero during wars/depressions, so could be sold strategically if needed to fund government in a dire situation.
The claim is that BTC is also a neutral asset, meaning it's not linked to any one government or economy, and it has certain properties similar to gold. And that the US should not let China or other countries stockpile this reserve asset first.
It's obviously not "necessary" for any government to function, but the claim is that the reserve properties would be strategically beneficial to weather the worldwide crises in the coming decades.
Absolute sovereignty is the important detail that brings the strategic reserve argument into complete focus. There are many types of wealth but none of them offer the level of freedom against censorship and external interference that bitcoin does. In an increasingly multipolar world bitcoin offers the greatest degree of self sovereignty for individuals and nations alike.
I think the one thing with crypto assets that differs it from other strategic reserve assets is that there is no baseline demand rooted in usage and consumption. If the US was in such an emergency position that it needed to liquidate the crypto, it could be worthless and unmovable because of lack of baseline demand at that time.
Although perhaps emergency purposes aren't the only reason to have reserve assets..
Sold for what though? Dollars of course. But why not just print more dollars in the first place? Gold could be used to make payments directly and I don't see that happening with BTC.
This argument still makes no sense, what am I missing.
- its supply is actually limited (unlike gold, which is near-infinite in the universe). Most of it has been mined. Its supply will actually diminish over time, as keys get lost forever, though it's hard to tell how fast that process is.
If you are at a war where your whole electric grid and internet and SMS are completely down, you have much bigger problems than currency not working.
It means your bank accounts are gone, your credit cards are gone.
And how are you actually going to use gold as currency? Walk into a shop and shave off some gold at the checkout? And how will the store owner authenticate that it's actually gold?
Bullets will be a better currency than gold in that scenario.
I'm not sure war even needs to be that large for it to be a problem.
Basically unless its like China vs US then you don't need sell BTC to fund the country (even then I don't think you would; but if you never need to sell BTC its pointless).
If China vs US then realistically, China can and probably will cut a lot of the internet traffic between the two. Bitcoin only functions because of the public ledger; if Chinese miners aren't sync'd with non-Chinese miners then you have a double-spend problem and I can't see bitcoin not going to 0 pretty quickly.
Gold is similarly useless when it's heavy and hard to move. There is little chance of that, and Bitcoin offers advantages in ease of transfer, transparency of transactions, and lack of government interference.
The purpose is to have a bag-holder with deep enough pockets to absorb any selling pressure by the whales who own substantial crypto holdings. That's it. That's the whole reason.
Steelman is a bit of a stretch on this move. It sounds to me like the government is seeding doubt in its own reserve currency and propping up a different currency. The only sane thing I can think of is that it's a hedge against a complete loss of faith in the dollar. But then the case would have to be made for this over going back to gold.
The sole purpose of the strategic reserves of tokens is to make them "too big to fail". Tokenbros correctly guess that their luck with impotent SEC may not last long, it may be 4 years more, or 8 years, or maybe tomorrow some Gabbard will try to demolish their sand pyramid. If said tokens are somehow already integrated into the govt. itself, then outlawing them is now a hundred time harder.
I am pro crypto and I absolutely could not steelman this.
Well let me put it this way.
From the perspective of crypto, crypto doesn't need the government. Honestly, the way eth has been running since the move to PoS, sort of operates with a reserve already. Crypto the technology, crypto the ecosystem does not need this. Its kind of stupid and as the article makes out, would have cypherpunks rolling in graves, unless the US goes the whole hog and converts entirely to crypto (so we can publicly audit bank holdings etc, and the government cant issue money) but that's unlikely. Honestly, adoption should be driven by making crypto more accessible without compromising security, and nothing else.
From the perspective of the government, it might make sense to have a reserve if they were going to do some kind of integration/development of crypto technology. Even if it was just to bring a wafer of stability to the platform while they participate.
However, the people that this benefits the most are the traders, so my cynicism is very high here. What shits me the most is that this brings honest to god sovereign risk to a sector thats meant to be asovereign. What if the next president dumps it all at a loss?
It's not that a "strategic reserve" is necessary for these cryptocurrencies. It's that holding those maybe be good for the US if their value goes up further and it can use them to buy stuff if need be. Same idea as the gold reserve really.
The first is the reality answer: the CEOs of all these companies (SOL, XRP, and ADA specifically) are directly involved and meeting with Trump officials and senators in order draft upcoming crypto legislation as, as told by ADA's creator[1]. BTC and ETH aren't included here, but they are the two largest and most impactful, recognizable cryptocurrencies already, kind of would be foolish to exclude them.
Secondly, the reason I don't think this is just "pumping insider's bags": from the perspective of a crypto-optimist, these are paradigm shifting technologies that have the potential to revolutionize global financial systems (at minimum). The "strategy" is coming from betting on this being true, and thus these assets will have high(er) value, use, and importance, in the near future.
I also don't think the reserve is going to be as large as people might get the impression. Anything in bllions sounds extremely unrealistic.
I can almost guarantee you most everyone who owns BTC will be 100% in favor of anything that will drive up it's price, because they falsely equate it's price as it's value. It has zero value despite it's price, just like beanie babies and Tulips always did.
I can't think of any assets that exist only in cyberspace. But even if you assert that grid-independence is not important, you're still stuck making the false claim that there's any scarcity in cyberspace. New crypto-coins can be created at the press of a button, thus your whole entire faith and hope is that everyone will always use Bitcoin, which is provably false.
The very fact that you're trying to pretend you conflated the words "crypto-coins" with "Bitcoins", as if you did it by accident (which you did not), proves my point better than I ever could have; because the entire [false] premise of scarcity among the Hodlers depends on having no other coins ever become popular.
Do you think printing fiat money is somehow harder or less silly than printing cryptocurrencies? You don't have arguments against crypto, you just have arguments against money. "Anybody can come up with a different money that would be exactly equal in every way" applies both to the Dollar and to Bitcoin.
Money is something you can hodl in your hands (whenever needed in physical form) and walk around with, and spend without ever involving the power grid.
When you Hodl Bitcoin all you've done is make an "In-Game Purchase" (Like Warcraft Gold) in a game that most humans don't want to play, and have already rejected. Also BTC has already failed as a currency, because the people who value it only want to hoard it, due to the fact that they consider it an actual asset, so they won't spend it; and the rest of us don't want to join your cult/game.
A game that can be cloned infinite times, at the click of a mouse, too.
Keep talking about how the 9th largest asset on earth by market cap has "already failed". It's very convincing.
Additionally, your definition of money is simply ludicrous. Your credit cards aren't money, then? What about that app on your phone called 'PayPal'? Is it just a collective delusion?
All you tried there was two strawman arguments, or else you didn't carefully read my words.
1) I said BTC failed as a currency. And yes all the people currently holding cryptos are indeed claiming it's an asset, but they all have one thing in common: They gave their REAL money to someone else in exchange for nothing. You purchased a jar of air with the word "Digital Gold" printed on the side of it basically...with the reasoning of "If everybody treats this special air as Gold, then it might as well be Gold"
2) Neither Credit Cards nor PayPal are money. They are technologies for HANDLING money. A technology for handling a thing is not the thing itself. Not a hard logical axiom to grasp is it?
> You purchased a jar of air with the word "Digital Gold" printed on the side of it basically...with the reasoning of "If everybody treats this special air as Gold, then it might as well be Gold"
And it is. You can try and dispute and rage against this fact all you want, but it already is. One bitcoin now goes for over $80,000. It's the 9th largest asset on earth. Anybody who has ever bought any over the past 15 years made a bet that has more than extraordinarily paid off. You can deny it, but it won't stop being true. You can keep saying it's going to "pop" at any minute, but that doesn't mean that it will.
Oh, I expect your air jars can easily get quite a bit higher than $80K, while the FoMo is still on the rise. During Tulip Bulb Mania a bud was going for the same amount as the price of a HOUSE. It's about psychology isn't it. Everyone knew that amount for a flower was insane, but did it anyway. Because, after all, something is worth whatever people are paying for it don't ya know.
Tell me this...how is your NFT collection doing these days? Am I missing out on that excellent asset class too? I want that million dollar picture of the first Tweet bro. Since Hashcodes are unique in the universe that makes my copy THE one.
I never claimed fiat was an asset. Nobody considers cash an asset.
I'm a software developer since 1990 so I recognize the value of blockchain technology, but I'm also smart enough to know a number in a computer ledger is not an asset.
The very fact that new crypto coins are about to be (or even ever could be) sanctioned by different governments/nations, is proof positive that the concept of scarcity is a myth.
Even Diamond-Hands Hodlers all admit that without scarcity there is no value either.
There is scarcity in BTC, but no scarcity on Cryptos. Every BTC investor/hodler is betting the farm that BTC will be the dominant crypto forever. BTC is very similar to a cult or Ponzi scheme where you only achieve your goal if you can convince others to join.
Why do you think nearly every BTC Maxi will claim all other coins are "Sh|t coins"? ...including coins/blockchains that are running identical code to BTC?
There is scarcity in USD, but no scarcity on Fiat. Every USD bond investor/hodler is betting the farm that the USA will be the dominant nation forever. USD is very similar to a cult or Ponzi scheme where you only achieve your goal if you can convince others to join.
Why do you think nearly every USA Maxi will claim all other countries are "Sh|t countries"? ...including nations/currencies that are using identical macroeconomics as USD?
I never said Fiat was an asset. You keep pretending like I'm some kind of Fiat advocate and I'm not. I just believe in real assets not make-believe ones, backed by nothing but faith.
Perhaps a good definition of the difference between currencies and assets is that currencies are backed by faith, and assets are backed by physical reality. (However that's a "necessary but not sufficient" definition, so it's only part of the definition, not the complete definition of course)
Are stocks, securities and ETFs backed by "physical reality"? Are treasury bills and bonds? If you are a goldbug who just thinks we should all be using gold, you should probably say so.
You realize stocks and securities are a part ownership in a company right? lolz. So yeah stocks are backed by physical reality. Maybe you can research what ETFs, and those other things are on your own time, since you apparently don't know.
While I completely agree crypto is full of shysters and most likely crypto has zero intrinsic value, as well the current administration tries to enrich itself through crypto, I disagree that recent change in prices after announcement proves it is a scam. Because if the government would have announced a strategic reserve in maple syrup, the syrup futures would have increased in price drastically as well.
Strategic reserves for actual physical commodities makes some sense. Then can reduce the volatility in markets due to sudden unexpected market shocks. In the case of maple syrup that might mean a stretch of really bad harvests.
But digital currency is made up. It isn't 'needed' for anything. So there is no sense to have a strategic reserve.
It's not about "needing" another one. The "other one" is already here, whether you think you need it or not. Will America play the leading role in how the world reacts to its existence, or will someone else beat them to being first? The answer was already decided. Welcome to the future.
Beating them to being first at what? The first to sink taxpayer resources into buying the latest meme coin? The first to provide a taxpayer funded bailout for crypto-bros? This is precisely the sort of 'waste and corruption' that the new administration should be getting away from, not diving into.
Oh yeah agreed that the change in prices doesn't prove it's a scam, my thought was more along the lines of - when crypto insiders who have been talking up crypto as valuable/important because it's independent of the government quickly change their tune and cheer on government intervention when it goes into their pockets, it makes it pretty clear what the dynamic actually is.
Correction: The USD is backed by a ponzi scheme where people who put money in have to rely on the USA being able to get more out to pay debt. If it fails at this at any point (which has nearly happened dozens of times!) then the entire thing collapses and suddenly the "world reserve currency" isn't as much "currency" as it is pieces of paper and digital ledger entries. Ironic, isn't it?
USD is used and is useful for transacting — especially in global markets — because of its high trading volume, stability, limited/no capital flow restrictions, federal reserve’s monetary policy to favor neither exporting or importing (meaning they will not chose to intentionally deflate or inflate the dollar’s value to favor/disfavor certain industries), and also USD’s global acceptance.
On the other hand, people don’t usually transact with BitCoin because of its volatility and because BitCoin’s currency deflation. I’m also almost certain Bitcoin protocols couldn’t keep up with global transactions even if the currency did stabilize. One last point (there are way too many to write them all here) is that there will be no incentive for people to verify blocks when all 21 billion coins are completely mined.
Bitcoin is a game of betting there is a bigger sucker who comes after you. Bitcoin whales realized that the government is the biggest sucker of them all. It’s ironic to me that they have lobbied so hard for the government to subsidize their assets when they have been preaching libertarian idolatry for years.
We are coming to the end of the era where you could avoid major exposure to crypto speculation by simply not "investing" in it. When the government and major banks and top S&P500 companies are putting their money in crypto, just imagine the damage the next bubble pop will inevitably cause.
I have a theory that the volatility we have seen in crypto historically is due to the influence that speculators have in the price of the asset given the % of speculator vs non-speculator money sunk into BTC
As more and more "non-speculator" money enters BTC, the swings in the price will decrease. I see the "rainbow chart" as a backing to this theory. It shows how the price has been slowly settling . In 25 years we should have a very stable deflating BTC price.
But this is just more "speculator" money... if I'm being pessimistic, this is an outright scam play to make the early speculators filthy rich by defrauding the US public out of their tax dollars.
The whole freaking problem is that crypto turns out to suck absolute cock as a real method of paying for things (Said as someone who has actually paid for items with bitcoin, incl on the OG silk road...)
How many of these folks investing in bitcoin have EVER bought a physical item at a physical store with it? Hell, even online stores... how many of these people are actually using these things as currency, instead of as pure speculation plays?
The answer is a resounding "Almost no one".
They're a complete crap way to pay for anything that's not literally illegal to buy.
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And there is no utility to the coins unless you're either buying things with them, or speculating that you can exchange them for more of a usable currency at a later time. Period.
Expect to be using cryptocurrency a lot more than you're used to in the future. How does native integration with Windows and all major operating systems/phones sound?
The issues with the currency are NOT just "can I actually pay you with it" (and that's STILL a big issue) it's all the surrounding work around conflict resolution.
I paid a contractor with bitcoin, he didn't do the work, he won't refund me. Now fucking what?
Court orders him to to give it back? How? They have no mechanism they can apply on the blockchain to actually enforce that order...
At least they can physically seize cash... they can't even do that here.
We're back to the days of "Buried treasure" like it's fucking pirates gold. I don't actually think the majority of users have any interest in that reality.
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Based on your post history, I bet you think orange fuck boi's 1000 dollar bills are a great idea too. You probably have money in TRUMP coin... You seem like someone convinced they're brilliant but who will leak money like a sieve, and constantly be angry because you don't understand why.
> They have no mechanism they can apply on the blockchain to actually enforce that order...
How about legal authority, or prison? Even with cash, you aren't getting paid back because the court can walk into his home and grab the money. He pays you back because he doesn't want to go to jail or be found guilty.
>Based on your post history, I bet you think orange fuck boi's 1000 dollar bills are a great idea too. You probably have money in TRUMP coin... You seem like someone convinced they're brilliant but who will leak money like a sieve, and constantly be angry because you don't understand why.
Come on now... we can agree and disagree and bring our arguments forward. But this is unnecessary, it doesn't promote insightful conversation. Your other arguments were very good. Don't pollute them with this.
Exactly. People forget that btc is still in price discovery. A brand new global monetary standard isn't priced by edict, the market must figure it out. Of course it's volatile, if it were smooth/predictable then this predictability would be exploited by traders and it would cease being predictable.
Wow this is going to be epic! The US govt prints dollars to prop up cryptocoins!
The sad thing is how this puts more money in the hands of bad people: This is inflating the holdings of shady orgs worldwide. And the way this admin has been bumbling its way into cleptocracy, I fully expect them to lose the keys later in a Mtgox scenario. Nobody will be able to explain how the funds were drained. They'd hired the best smart contract experts from the X roster, what more could they have done?
I'm fine with crypto for transactions, but I'm not fine with my government using our money to pick winners and losers, conflicts of interest, emoluments, or artificially propping up what are likely bubbles and pyramid schemes.
The fact that scammers, fraudsters, Ponzi schemers and extortion racketeers have run trillions of dollars of swindles using US dollars is not evidence that the US dollar is a scam, a fraud, a Ponzi scheme or an extortion racket.
For the sake of argument, let's imagine a scenario in which, someday, a ridiculously, blatantly corrupt person became President. And Congress was aware, but had controlling majorities that, one way or another, were aligned with this situation. And the Supreme Court had already been started to be stacked by the same person. And various agencies under Executive branch, which might normally be able to push back, were being systematically gutted, and otherwise intimidated, including blatant reprisal against law enforcement officers for even investigating some past corruption case. And let's imagine that some oligarchs bought up a lot of Fourth Estate, and most of the rest of the Fourth Estate was decimated by other oligarch "disruptive tech", and tech oligarchs also control much of the remaining grassroots channels of communication. And lets imagine that, partly due to media manipulation by the oligarchs, the majority of the electorate, of all parties, had forgotten everything that they ever learned in Civics class.
In this totally hypothetical situation-- but please bear with me, and imagine, for the sake of this fun intellectual exercise, that someday this could somehow happen in the US, in theory...
What remaining US gov't checks and balances would there be? How could that corruption scenario be thwarted?
(For example, is there a way for a minority in Congress to successfully bring charges? Does the FBI or some other agency have powers to investigate and intervene, below the radar? Does Judicial have any power to intervene, perhaps if petitioned? Do states have rights to contest the situation? What if there is also a treason angle; does that activate powers from anywhere else in the government to intervene?)
If this scenario was discussed in Civics class, it flew right over my head at the time, but now seems interesting.
Notably, Bitcoiners are very upset about all the worthless shitcoins added to the BTC there.
While the Ethereum is arguably decentralized, maybe, kind-of, the other ones: XRP, Solana, and Cardano, are basically centralized nonsense, that at best can be considered a payment system and not a decentralized commodity.
Bitcoiners are barking up the wrong tree - their blockchain is effectively unusable without L2 chains. There is pretty much no way to transact Bitcoin quickly or cheaply without acquiescing to a third-party service that could very well be centralized.
Time will show us that all of them are shitcoins in the end. But don't take my word for it, just wait and see.
For something "unusable" it sure seems weird that it's near all time highs, while fees are very low. Very weird.
The real long term value is and always was due to a trustworthy, sovereign store of value properties. Trying to compete with Visa or Venmo, or enable online gambling is catchy, but does mean anything, as nothing there requires the underlying shitcoin asset. Stablecoins are far better at that, but it's hard to sell a sucker idea that the stabelcoin is going to "moon".
"Very weird" is investing in a currency you can't use. Illiquidity is one thing - having to wait hours for an idempotent transaction to finish is a horse of a queer color. Bitcoin itself is a vehicle for second-layer chains, none of which have to abide by Bitcoin's principles of sovereignty or decentralization.
I'll just let you down easy here, the strategy involved is little else than legitimizing a market rife with fraud. Call them shitcoins all you like, Trump is happy to treat them with the same "strategic" levity he attributes to Bitcoin. Are you sensing a pattern, at all?
Better yet, why not AMERICAN tax payers. I (non American) would be extremely happy for trump to pump BTC price so that I can sell my crypto at a 50x win. Thanks !
That's the view Bitcoin took, after they gave up on the kind of scaling they'd need to be a practical payment system. Ethereum is working hard on scaling beyond 100K tx/sec:
If tax dollars are ever used to buy cryptos, that's simply a transfer of wealth to the crypto sellers, in exchange for nothing in return. This is just another "Tax and Waste" policy. It's just money taken from one group just to give to some other group. It's immoral and illegal, because the gov't is not an investment bank.
Or nuclear stockpile maintenance, firefighters, or clean water. Who needs that shit anyhow when everyone has their own private firefighters, goons, and water filtration?
Oh, guys (both of you) I'm totally in favor of having a Federal government that spends money in a way that obtains an actual use for that money, to protect and defend the nation.
However, transferring my tax dollars to persons/investors wanting to unload his cryptos is pure theft of my money, and just a pure transfer of my money to whoever's smart enough to be dumping their coins.
Long answer: no, oil is needed for the functioning of our society. Helping smooth price volatility is useful and valuable. On the other hand, BTC is not needed for our society to function, and so there is little to no value in managing prices of it. This appears to be an attempt to hedge against the collapse in the trust in the dollar.
> This appears to be an attempt to hedge against the collapse in the trust in the dollar.
Or maybe an attempt to accelerate a reduction of trust in the dollar? Any cryptocurrency in the strategic reserve is being purchase with dollars, which increases the number of dollars in circulation, and will also be directly inflationary (if it’s newly issued dollars) or increases the US debt (if those dollars are obtained by issuing debt, which classical macroeconomic theory suggests is also inflationary).
Maybe it's a good idea to have a currency that isn't being inflated and devalued all the time with every little thing the government does. Kind of gold. Maybe digital gold? I'll call it bitgold. Or what about bitcoin?
That depends on whether there’s a use for oil aside from as a tradable commodity, and additionally on whether there are scenarios in which we might need it for that potential use case in quantities that exceed our ability to easily acquire it.
Can anyone who is pro-crypto (particularly: btc, eth) make the steelman argument for why a "strategic reserve" is necessary for these cryptocurrencies? Or even beneficial? I've been involved in the industry in various ways for years and I fundamentally don't understand why the government owning a lot of btc/eth is advantageous. I understand the "reserve" part, but I don't understand the "strategic."
I'm open to the idea that this could be both a good idea and a way to line insiders' pockets with US taxpayer money, but it really just looks like the latter to me.
(I've been able to come up with a few theories but they all involve the complete destruction of value of the US dollar, and I don't understand how that would be net good for America.)
The best case is an argument similar to the reason the US gold reserve exists. While the gold no longer directly backs the currency, gold is a neutral asset and wouldn't go to zero during wars/depressions, so could be sold strategically if needed to fund government in a dire situation.
The claim is that BTC is also a neutral asset, meaning it's not linked to any one government or economy, and it has certain properties similar to gold. And that the US should not let China or other countries stockpile this reserve asset first.
It's obviously not "necessary" for any government to function, but the claim is that the reserve properties would be strategically beneficial to weather the worldwide crises in the coming decades.
That's the best argument I've heard, thank you. I disagree with aspects of this argument but it at least makes some sense to me.
Absolute sovereignty is the important detail that brings the strategic reserve argument into complete focus. There are many types of wealth but none of them offer the level of freedom against censorship and external interference that bitcoin does. In an increasingly multipolar world bitcoin offers the greatest degree of self sovereignty for individuals and nations alike.
I think the one thing with crypto assets that differs it from other strategic reserve assets is that there is no baseline demand rooted in usage and consumption. If the US was in such an emergency position that it needed to liquidate the crypto, it could be worthless and unmovable because of lack of baseline demand at that time.
Although perhaps emergency purposes aren't the only reason to have reserve assets..
Sold for what though? Dollars of course. But why not just print more dollars in the first place? Gold could be used to make payments directly and I don't see that happening with BTC.
This argument still makes no sense, what am I missing.
BTC is better than gold in many regards.
- impossible to counterfeit
- trivial to audit
- easy to transfer
- easier to store
- its supply is actually limited (unlike gold, which is near-infinite in the universe). Most of it has been mined. Its supply will actually diminish over time, as keys get lost forever, though it's hard to tell how fast that process is.
And completely worthless in the event of war with attacks on power grids electronics etc. Gold on the other hand, I could trade for food.
If you are at a war where your whole electric grid and internet and SMS are completely down, you have much bigger problems than currency not working.
It means your bank accounts are gone, your credit cards are gone.
And how are you actually going to use gold as currency? Walk into a shop and shave off some gold at the checkout? And how will the store owner authenticate that it's actually gold?
Bullets will be a better currency than gold in that scenario.
I'm not sure war even needs to be that large for it to be a problem.
Basically unless its like China vs US then you don't need sell BTC to fund the country (even then I don't think you would; but if you never need to sell BTC its pointless).
If China vs US then realistically, China can and probably will cut a lot of the internet traffic between the two. Bitcoin only functions because of the public ledger; if Chinese miners aren't sync'd with non-Chinese miners then you have a double-spend problem and I can't see bitcoin not going to 0 pretty quickly.
> And how will the store owner authenticate that it's actually gold?
Umm this is a solved problem. Believe it or not gold has been used as currency for thousands of years.
Gold is similarly useless when it's heavy and hard to move. There is little chance of that, and Bitcoin offers advantages in ease of transfer, transparency of transactions, and lack of government interference.
> Heavy and hard to move
This only applies to very large amounts of monetary value. $1m USD is currently under 24lb/10.7kg.
Easy to detect if you want to "move" between countries. You wouldn't want to try to get that through an airport.
Bitcoin is just some words on paper (or in your head).
Can you? What use is gold in the Mad Max era?
The purpose is to have a bag-holder with deep enough pockets to absorb any selling pressure by the whales who own substantial crypto holdings. That's it. That's the whole reason.
Isn’t that provided by satoshi, the dead and those who lost their hard drives?
Only for as long as those coins are (presumably by your comment incorrectly) considered part of the market.
Steelman is a bit of a stretch on this move. It sounds to me like the government is seeding doubt in its own reserve currency and propping up a different currency. The only sane thing I can think of is that it's a hedge against a complete loss of faith in the dollar. But then the case would have to be made for this over going back to gold.
The sole purpose of the strategic reserves of tokens is to make them "too big to fail". Tokenbros correctly guess that their luck with impotent SEC may not last long, it may be 4 years more, or 8 years, or maybe tomorrow some Gabbard will try to demolish their sand pyramid. If said tokens are somehow already integrated into the govt. itself, then outlawing them is now a hundred time harder.
I am pro crypto and I absolutely could not steelman this.
Well let me put it this way.
From the perspective of crypto, crypto doesn't need the government. Honestly, the way eth has been running since the move to PoS, sort of operates with a reserve already. Crypto the technology, crypto the ecosystem does not need this. Its kind of stupid and as the article makes out, would have cypherpunks rolling in graves, unless the US goes the whole hog and converts entirely to crypto (so we can publicly audit bank holdings etc, and the government cant issue money) but that's unlikely. Honestly, adoption should be driven by making crypto more accessible without compromising security, and nothing else.
From the perspective of the government, it might make sense to have a reserve if they were going to do some kind of integration/development of crypto technology. Even if it was just to bring a wafer of stability to the platform while they participate.
However, the people that this benefits the most are the traders, so my cynicism is very high here. What shits me the most is that this brings honest to god sovereign risk to a sector thats meant to be asovereign. What if the next president dumps it all at a loss?
It is all upsides actually:
- If the gov knows how to seize and keep it from criminals, then whales capable of controlling the market are reduced
- If the gov ever tries to sell, it will likely be predictable, so more manipulation benefits for those who know how to do it
- Hidden transfer of wealth from any corrupt animal directly into dump's hands without traditional paper trails
- Dump can use it to manipulate his own illegal meme coins
- Eventually it will be "hacked" and gone, definitely not by dumps closest friends who had the keys the whole time
oh by the word upside, that is for one group of people anyway
I'm semi pro-crypto.
It's not that a "strategic reserve" is necessary for these cryptocurrencies. It's that holding those maybe be good for the US if their value goes up further and it can use them to buy stuff if need be. Same idea as the gold reserve really.
Hi, crypto steelman here. I have two answers:
The first is the reality answer: the CEOs of all these companies (SOL, XRP, and ADA specifically) are directly involved and meeting with Trump officials and senators in order draft upcoming crypto legislation as, as told by ADA's creator[1]. BTC and ETH aren't included here, but they are the two largest and most impactful, recognizable cryptocurrencies already, kind of would be foolish to exclude them.
Secondly, the reason I don't think this is just "pumping insider's bags": from the perspective of a crypto-optimist, these are paradigm shifting technologies that have the potential to revolutionize global financial systems (at minimum). The "strategy" is coming from betting on this being true, and thus these assets will have high(er) value, use, and importance, in the near future. I also don't think the reserve is going to be as large as people might get the impression. Anything in bllions sounds extremely unrealistic.
[1]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xgGTW_GK9vM I highly suggest watching this video. He gives a quite sobering and optimistic take of the situation.
I've been wondering about Gresham's Law with respect to dollars and crypto. Which one will drive out the other?
I can almost guarantee you most everyone who owns BTC will be 100% in favor of anything that will drive up it's price, because they falsely equate it's price as it's value. It has zero value despite it's price, just like beanie babies and Tulips always did.
You're wrong — I own BTC and believe in the value of cryptocurrencies, but I am opposed to the US government doing this with my tax dollars.
I'm still correct, because I said "most".
How are you defining value here?
Everything that hodls it's desirability even after a grid-down scenario.
Your idea of value is completely and utterly disrupted from the rest of the world, then.
I can't think of any assets that exist only in cyberspace. But even if you assert that grid-independence is not important, you're still stuck making the false claim that there's any scarcity in cyberspace. New crypto-coins can be created at the press of a button, thus your whole entire faith and hope is that everyone will always use Bitcoin, which is provably false.
>New crypto-coins can be created at the press of a button
Oh? Can you prove this? How are you capable of creating new Bitcoins without mining them? Surely this big secret you have should be worth sharing.
The very fact that you're trying to pretend you conflated the words "crypto-coins" with "Bitcoins", as if you did it by accident (which you did not), proves my point better than I ever could have; because the entire [false] premise of scarcity among the Hodlers depends on having no other coins ever become popular.
Do you think printing fiat money is somehow harder or less silly than printing cryptocurrencies? You don't have arguments against crypto, you just have arguments against money. "Anybody can come up with a different money that would be exactly equal in every way" applies both to the Dollar and to Bitcoin.
Money is something you can hodl in your hands (whenever needed in physical form) and walk around with, and spend without ever involving the power grid.
When you Hodl Bitcoin all you've done is make an "In-Game Purchase" (Like Warcraft Gold) in a game that most humans don't want to play, and have already rejected. Also BTC has already failed as a currency, because the people who value it only want to hoard it, due to the fact that they consider it an actual asset, so they won't spend it; and the rest of us don't want to join your cult/game.
A game that can be cloned infinite times, at the click of a mouse, too.
Keep talking about how the 9th largest asset on earth by market cap has "already failed". It's very convincing.
Additionally, your definition of money is simply ludicrous. Your credit cards aren't money, then? What about that app on your phone called 'PayPal'? Is it just a collective delusion?
All you tried there was two strawman arguments, or else you didn't carefully read my words.
1) I said BTC failed as a currency. And yes all the people currently holding cryptos are indeed claiming it's an asset, but they all have one thing in common: They gave their REAL money to someone else in exchange for nothing. You purchased a jar of air with the word "Digital Gold" printed on the side of it basically...with the reasoning of "If everybody treats this special air as Gold, then it might as well be Gold"
2) Neither Credit Cards nor PayPal are money. They are technologies for HANDLING money. A technology for handling a thing is not the thing itself. Not a hard logical axiom to grasp is it?
> You purchased a jar of air with the word "Digital Gold" printed on the side of it basically...with the reasoning of "If everybody treats this special air as Gold, then it might as well be Gold"
And it is. You can try and dispute and rage against this fact all you want, but it already is. One bitcoin now goes for over $80,000. It's the 9th largest asset on earth. Anybody who has ever bought any over the past 15 years made a bet that has more than extraordinarily paid off. You can deny it, but it won't stop being true. You can keep saying it's going to "pop" at any minute, but that doesn't mean that it will.
Oh, I expect your air jars can easily get quite a bit higher than $80K, while the FoMo is still on the rise. During Tulip Bulb Mania a bud was going for the same amount as the price of a HOUSE. It's about psychology isn't it. Everyone knew that amount for a flower was insane, but did it anyway. Because, after all, something is worth whatever people are paying for it don't ya know.
Tell me this...how is your NFT collection doing these days? Am I missing out on that excellent asset class too? I want that million dollar picture of the first Tweet bro. Since Hashcodes are unique in the universe that makes my copy THE one.
In such a scenario you wouldn't be able to use fiat either. Guns and food would be of greatest value. Maybe we should just reserve guns and ammo?
I never claimed fiat was an asset. Nobody considers cash an asset.
I'm a software developer since 1990 so I recognize the value of blockchain technology, but I'm also smart enough to know a number in a computer ledger is not an asset.
I also own some and am very suspicious and a bit nervous that USA is getting in on it. Especially with the current administration.
The very fact that new crypto coins are about to be (or even ever could be) sanctioned by different governments/nations, is proof positive that the concept of scarcity is a myth.
Even Diamond-Hands Hodlers all admit that without scarcity there is no value either.
Not at all following how presence or possibility of sanctions supposedly invalidate scarcity as such. How does it follow? I think you are confused.
There is scarcity in BTC, but no scarcity on Cryptos. Every BTC investor/hodler is betting the farm that BTC will be the dominant crypto forever. BTC is very similar to a cult or Ponzi scheme where you only achieve your goal if you can convince others to join.
Why do you think nearly every BTC Maxi will claim all other coins are "Sh|t coins"? ...including coins/blockchains that are running identical code to BTC?
There is scarcity in USD, but no scarcity on Fiat. Every USD bond investor/hodler is betting the farm that the USA will be the dominant nation forever. USD is very similar to a cult or Ponzi scheme where you only achieve your goal if you can convince others to join.
Why do you think nearly every USA Maxi will claim all other countries are "Sh|t countries"? ...including nations/currencies that are using identical macroeconomics as USD?
I never said Fiat was an asset. You keep pretending like I'm some kind of Fiat advocate and I'm not. I just believe in real assets not make-believe ones, backed by nothing but faith.
Perhaps a good definition of the difference between currencies and assets is that currencies are backed by faith, and assets are backed by physical reality. (However that's a "necessary but not sufficient" definition, so it's only part of the definition, not the complete definition of course)
Are stocks, securities and ETFs backed by "physical reality"? Are treasury bills and bonds? If you are a goldbug who just thinks we should all be using gold, you should probably say so.
You realize stocks and securities are a part ownership in a company right? lolz. So yeah stocks are backed by physical reality. Maybe you can research what ETFs, and those other things are on your own time, since you apparently don't know.
While I completely agree crypto is full of shysters and most likely crypto has zero intrinsic value, as well the current administration tries to enrich itself through crypto, I disagree that recent change in prices after announcement proves it is a scam. Because if the government would have announced a strategic reserve in maple syrup, the syrup futures would have increased in price drastically as well.
Was curious if a maple reserve existed. looks like Canada is leading the charge on that one: https://ppaq.ca/en/sale-purchase-maple-syrup/worlds-only-res...
Strategic reserves for actual physical commodities makes some sense. Then can reduce the volatility in markets due to sudden unexpected market shocks. In the case of maple syrup that might mean a stretch of really bad harvests.
But digital currency is made up. It isn't 'needed' for anything. So there is no sense to have a strategic reserve.
> there is no sense to have a strategic reserve
FX reserves. (Doesn’t apply here. But stockpiling social constructs can still make sense.)
I think the closet example here would be if the Federal Government had started a "beanie babies" strategic reserve back in the 90s.
All currency is made up, and even physical reserves (gold) have very little intrinsic value. Bitcoin is just another one.
Yes, this is true. The federal government already has the US dollar. It does not need "another one". Why would it?
It's not about "needing" another one. The "other one" is already here, whether you think you need it or not. Will America play the leading role in how the world reacts to its existence, or will someone else beat them to being first? The answer was already decided. Welcome to the future.
Beating them to being first at what? The first to sink taxpayer resources into buying the latest meme coin? The first to provide a taxpayer funded bailout for crypto-bros? This is precisely the sort of 'waste and corruption' that the new administration should be getting away from, not diving into.
Famously subject of the biggest heist in Canadian history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Canadian_Maple_Syrup_Hei...
Oh yeah agreed that the change in prices doesn't prove it's a scam, my thought was more along the lines of - when crypto insiders who have been talking up crypto as valuable/important because it's independent of the government quickly change their tune and cheer on government intervention when it goes into their pockets, it makes it pretty clear what the dynamic actually is.
Lumping an entire industry into a single convenient strawman isn't very good for you.
This is actually a re-announcement of something already announced!
The only difference here is mentioning of specific cryptocurrencies.
Prove? That's a high bar to clear. But this is a spike at merely reiterating a bailout plan.
Intrinsic vale is not a prerequisite for utility. USD has no intrinsic value. Yes, you can pay your taxes with it. That is a contingent value.
The only intrinsic value of crypto is that it can not be unilaterally inflated away, and can be difficult to digitally seize.
In this respect it is similar to gold. It lacks the physical uses of gold, but is easier to transport.
No, I don't think the US government should invest in it. It should make sure it's own currency retains value.
USD is backed by the US economy and a significant portion of global trade.
BTC is backed by hopes, dreams and market speculation.
Correction: The USD is backed by a ponzi scheme where people who put money in have to rely on the USA being able to get more out to pay debt. If it fails at this at any point (which has nearly happened dozens of times!) then the entire thing collapses and suddenly the "world reserve currency" isn't as much "currency" as it is pieces of paper and digital ledger entries. Ironic, isn't it?
What point are you making in relation to what I said? USD can still be devalued.
My point is that the USD has some inherent value, while BTC has none.
I think BTC has some advantages in the attributes I described in my parent post.
Inherent or not depends on how far are you willing to stretch your assumptions.
> crypto has zero intrinsic value
So do fiat currencies.
The USA military/industrial complex does not agree.
USD is used and is useful for transacting — especially in global markets — because of its high trading volume, stability, limited/no capital flow restrictions, federal reserve’s monetary policy to favor neither exporting or importing (meaning they will not chose to intentionally deflate or inflate the dollar’s value to favor/disfavor certain industries), and also USD’s global acceptance.
On the other hand, people don’t usually transact with BitCoin because of its volatility and because BitCoin’s currency deflation. I’m also almost certain Bitcoin protocols couldn’t keep up with global transactions even if the currency did stabilize. One last point (there are way too many to write them all here) is that there will be no incentive for people to verify blocks when all 21 billion coins are completely mined.
Bitcoin is a game of betting there is a bigger sucker who comes after you. Bitcoin whales realized that the government is the biggest sucker of them all. It’s ironic to me that they have lobbied so hard for the government to subsidize their assets when they have been preaching libertarian idolatry for years.
You need fiat to pay your taxes.
or go to jail :)
We are coming to the end of the era where you could avoid major exposure to crypto speculation by simply not "investing" in it. When the government and major banks and top S&P500 companies are putting their money in crypto, just imagine the damage the next bubble pop will inevitably cause.
I have a theory that the volatility we have seen in crypto historically is due to the influence that speculators have in the price of the asset given the % of speculator vs non-speculator money sunk into BTC
As more and more "non-speculator" money enters BTC, the swings in the price will decrease. I see the "rainbow chart" as a backing to this theory. It shows how the price has been slowly settling . In 25 years we should have a very stable deflating BTC price.
But this is just more "speculator" money... if I'm being pessimistic, this is an outright scam play to make the early speculators filthy rich by defrauding the US public out of their tax dollars.
The whole freaking problem is that crypto turns out to suck absolute cock as a real method of paying for things (Said as someone who has actually paid for items with bitcoin, incl on the OG silk road...)
How many of these folks investing in bitcoin have EVER bought a physical item at a physical store with it? Hell, even online stores... how many of these people are actually using these things as currency, instead of as pure speculation plays?
The answer is a resounding "Almost no one".
They're a complete crap way to pay for anything that's not literally illegal to buy.
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And there is no utility to the coins unless you're either buying things with them, or speculating that you can exchange them for more of a usable currency at a later time. Period.
Expect to be using cryptocurrency a lot more than you're used to in the future. How does native integration with Windows and all major operating systems/phones sound?
Like a scam. It sounds like a scam.
The issues with the currency are NOT just "can I actually pay you with it" (and that's STILL a big issue) it's all the surrounding work around conflict resolution.
I paid a contractor with bitcoin, he didn't do the work, he won't refund me. Now fucking what?
Court orders him to to give it back? How? They have no mechanism they can apply on the blockchain to actually enforce that order...
At least they can physically seize cash... they can't even do that here.
We're back to the days of "Buried treasure" like it's fucking pirates gold. I don't actually think the majority of users have any interest in that reality.
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Based on your post history, I bet you think orange fuck boi's 1000 dollar bills are a great idea too. You probably have money in TRUMP coin... You seem like someone convinced they're brilliant but who will leak money like a sieve, and constantly be angry because you don't understand why.
> They have no mechanism they can apply on the blockchain to actually enforce that order...
How about legal authority, or prison? Even with cash, you aren't getting paid back because the court can walk into his home and grab the money. He pays you back because he doesn't want to go to jail or be found guilty.
>Based on your post history, I bet you think orange fuck boi's 1000 dollar bills are a great idea too. You probably have money in TRUMP coin... You seem like someone convinced they're brilliant but who will leak money like a sieve, and constantly be angry because you don't understand why.
Come on now... we can agree and disagree and bring our arguments forward. But this is unnecessary, it doesn't promote insightful conversation. Your other arguments were very good. Don't pollute them with this.
Exactly. People forget that btc is still in price discovery. A brand new global monetary standard isn't priced by edict, the market must figure it out. Of course it's volatile, if it were smooth/predictable then this predictability would be exploited by traders and it would cease being predictable.
Wow this is going to be epic! The US govt prints dollars to prop up cryptocoins!
The sad thing is how this puts more money in the hands of bad people: This is inflating the holdings of shady orgs worldwide. And the way this admin has been bumbling its way into cleptocracy, I fully expect them to lose the keys later in a Mtgox scenario. Nobody will be able to explain how the funds were drained. They'd hired the best smart contract experts from the X roster, what more could they have done?
I'm assuming that next, the US will invest in a "Strategic Tesla stock reserve."
I'm relieved TRUMP and MELANIA meme coins have not yet been included.
I would not be opposed to the Federal Reserve buying VTI and distributing the dividends as UBI.
I'm fine with crypto for transactions, but I'm not fine with my government using our money to pick winners and losers, conflicts of interest, emoluments, or artificially propping up what are likely bubbles and pyramid schemes.
The United States government is now officially betting against the United States Dollar.
Trump has been willing to put his interests ahead of those of the US for a long time now.
The fact that scammers, fraudsters, Ponzi schemers and extortion racketeers have run trillions of dollars of swindles using US dollars is not evidence that the US dollar is a scam, a fraud, a Ponzi scheme or an extortion racket.
What percentage of USD transaction volume is made up of scams, fraud, Ponzi schemes, and extortion rackets? What percentage of BTC?
Not at all similar.
Incredible conflict of interest here.
And probably emoluments too.
Bigger picture, a genuine curious question:
For the sake of argument, let's imagine a scenario in which, someday, a ridiculously, blatantly corrupt person became President. And Congress was aware, but had controlling majorities that, one way or another, were aligned with this situation. And the Supreme Court had already been started to be stacked by the same person. And various agencies under Executive branch, which might normally be able to push back, were being systematically gutted, and otherwise intimidated, including blatant reprisal against law enforcement officers for even investigating some past corruption case. And let's imagine that some oligarchs bought up a lot of Fourth Estate, and most of the rest of the Fourth Estate was decimated by other oligarch "disruptive tech", and tech oligarchs also control much of the remaining grassroots channels of communication. And lets imagine that, partly due to media manipulation by the oligarchs, the majority of the electorate, of all parties, had forgotten everything that they ever learned in Civics class.
In this totally hypothetical situation-- but please bear with me, and imagine, for the sake of this fun intellectual exercise, that someday this could somehow happen in the US, in theory...
What remaining US gov't checks and balances would there be? How could that corruption scenario be thwarted?
(For example, is there a way for a minority in Congress to successfully bring charges? Does the FBI or some other agency have powers to investigate and intervene, below the radar? Does Judicial have any power to intervene, perhaps if petitioned? Do states have rights to contest the situation? What if there is also a treason angle; does that activate powers from anywhere else in the government to intervene?)
If this scenario was discussed in Civics class, it flew right over my head at the time, but now seems interesting.
Notably, Bitcoiners are very upset about all the worthless shitcoins added to the BTC there.
While the Ethereum is arguably decentralized, maybe, kind-of, the other ones: XRP, Solana, and Cardano, are basically centralized nonsense, that at best can be considered a payment system and not a decentralized commodity.
Bitcoiners are barking up the wrong tree - their blockchain is effectively unusable without L2 chains. There is pretty much no way to transact Bitcoin quickly or cheaply without acquiescing to a third-party service that could very well be centralized.
Time will show us that all of them are shitcoins in the end. But don't take my word for it, just wait and see.
For something "unusable" it sure seems weird that it's near all time highs, while fees are very low. Very weird.
The real long term value is and always was due to a trustworthy, sovereign store of value properties. Trying to compete with Visa or Venmo, or enable online gambling is catchy, but does mean anything, as nothing there requires the underlying shitcoin asset. Stablecoins are far better at that, but it's hard to sell a sucker idea that the stabelcoin is going to "moon".
"Very weird" is investing in a currency you can't use. Illiquidity is one thing - having to wait hours for an idempotent transaction to finish is a horse of a queer color. Bitcoin itself is a vehicle for second-layer chains, none of which have to abide by Bitcoin's principles of sovereignty or decentralization.
I'll just let you down easy here, the strategy involved is little else than legitimizing a market rife with fraud. Call them shitcoins all you like, Trump is happy to treat them with the same "strategic" levity he attributes to Bitcoin. Are you sensing a pattern, at all?
Well, somebody has to HODL the bag at the end. Why not the taxpayers?
Better yet, why not AMERICAN tax payers. I (non American) would be extremely happy for trump to pump BTC price so that I can sell my crypto at a 50x win. Thanks !
"bitcoin reserve" is the dumbest idea I've heard since "bitcoin".
It's my understanding that the prevailing pro-crypto view is that it's a store of value not a payment system.
That's the view Bitcoin took, after they gave up on the kind of scaling they'd need to be a practical payment system. Ethereum is working hard on scaling beyond 100K tx/sec:
https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/01/23/l1l2future.html
That's the sucker view. It's only useful for transactions because it's too risky to hold.
I hold crypto, mostly BTC, and think this is just another grabby move by the Trump administration that will ultimately harm crypto.
If tax dollars are ever used to buy cryptos, that's simply a transfer of wealth to the crypto sellers, in exchange for nothing in return. This is just another "Tax and Waste" policy. It's just money taken from one group just to give to some other group. It's immoral and illegal, because the gov't is not an investment bank.
On the bright side we're no longer wasting money on shit people don't need like weather prediction.
Or nuclear stockpile maintenance, firefighters, or clean water. Who needs that shit anyhow when everyone has their own private firefighters, goons, and water filtration?
/s
Oh, guys (both of you) I'm totally in favor of having a Federal government that spends money in a way that obtains an actual use for that money, to protect and defend the nation.
However, transferring my tax dollars to persons/investors wanting to unload his cryptos is pure theft of my money, and just a pure transfer of my money to whoever's smart enough to be dumping their coins.
Would you agree that the Strategic Oil Reserve has exactly the same qualities?
Short answer: no.
Long answer: no, oil is needed for the functioning of our society. Helping smooth price volatility is useful and valuable. On the other hand, BTC is not needed for our society to function, and so there is little to no value in managing prices of it. This appears to be an attempt to hedge against the collapse in the trust in the dollar.
> This appears to be an attempt to hedge against the collapse in the trust in the dollar.
Or maybe an attempt to accelerate a reduction of trust in the dollar? Any cryptocurrency in the strategic reserve is being purchase with dollars, which increases the number of dollars in circulation, and will also be directly inflationary (if it’s newly issued dollars) or increases the US debt (if those dollars are obtained by issuing debt, which classical macroeconomic theory suggests is also inflationary).
Maybe it's a good idea to have a currency that isn't being inflated and devalued all the time with every little thing the government does. Kind of gold. Maybe digital gold? I'll call it bitgold. Or what about bitcoin?
That depends on whether there’s a use for oil aside from as a tradable commodity, and additionally on whether there are scenarios in which we might need it for that potential use case in quantities that exceed our ability to easily acquire it.
I dunno, can you fill your tank up with bitcoin when you need to get to work?
Do EMPs destroy the ability to use and exchange oil?
This is beside the point but they actually might. Take out the electric grid, and most other stuff stops working, including gas pumps and refineries.
Oil is notably necessary to keep the united states military operational (in addition to the uses in other comments).
that’s not “in exchange for nothing”, its in exchange for oil. not terribly complicated.
No, I wouldn't exactly call Oil worthless. lol. Thanks for the entertainment tho, with that post.
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