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If you don't believe that long-term Bitcoin is going 10x - 100x and becomes, at the very least, a planetary store of value, then of course Strategic Bitcoin Res

by kjksf 2y ago

If you don't believe that long-term Bitcoin is going 10x - 100x and becomes, at the very least, a planetary store of value, then of course Strategic Bitcoin Reserve doesn't make any sense. If you do believe that then you understand why any person, company or country will benefit financially by stocking up on Bitcoin today. If you believe that Beanie babies or russian ruble will 10x - 100x then you would believe that any person, company or country will benefit financially by stocking on beanie babies today.

pants2 2y ago
Though much of the controversy is around the inclusion of ripple, solana, and cardano. There's no reason to have these in the reserve. Might as well hold GME in there too.
- krustyburger 2y ago
  I love it when my government apes into things.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    Even worse: 1. Using money taken from you, preventing you from ape-ing-in yourself. 2. Doing it with zero promise that any future profits will benefit you, as opposed to offsetting a giant tax cut for the wealthy again.
- desumeku 2y ago
  You can't have stablecoins, smart contracts, and an entire crypto economy on Bitcoin alone. Trump said crypto capital. I'm personally expecting grocery stores to start showing you a QR code for stablecoin payment over your preferred chain next year.
wmf 2y ago
That wouldn't be a strategic reserve, just a speculative investment. You might ask why the US doesn't also invest in AAPL and NVDA. You might also consider the "soft power" effects of the US using the global middle class as exit liquidity.
- kjksf 2y ago
  Ignoring arguments on semantics (the meaning of "strategic"), here's the difference between AAPL or NVDA and Bitcoin. In the long term AAPL and NVDA market cap / stock price will converge to their future financial performance and historically speaking it's guaranteed that those companies will decline. So if you're looking for a really long term investment, it's not a good one. This is different than U.S. buying Alaska from Russia. There's only one Alaska, if U.S. has it then no-one else has it. Bitcoin was designed to have the same scarcity as land. There's only 21 million bitcoins and if you buy 5 of them today, no one else will own those 5 until you sell them. If you believe that Bitcoin will become the largest "store of value" asset class that any person, company or country buying Bitcoin today will benefit compared to people / companies / countries that do no buy Bitcoin today. Is such belief speculative? Of course it is. Buying Alaska from Russia was also speculative purchases. Not everyone thought it was a good deal and no-one knew it has gold and oil. Is there strategic benefit to U.S. to owning scarce financial asset? Well, U.S. does benefits from dollar's status as world's reserve currency. If Bitcoin does become planetary store of value and planetary currency, it's better for U.S. to own larger part of it than China or Russia or Iran.
  - namaria 2y ago
    Cryptocurrency peddlers only have two arguments: fiat currency has no value, and bitcoin is gonna 10/100x in its fiat currency value. Well, which one is it? If a group of people has all the bitcoin in the future, and other people have possession of things they want/need... Well, the value of bitcoin will be zero unless you can compel people who possess actual useful and necessary things to accept it. Which you can do if you are a government with power of taxation. It actually has negative value, because you need the computers running the software that represents it to keep running. I really cannot figure why people think bitcoin is special. The value of money comes from the power of taxation, not from the underlying representation of the money.
- senordevnyc 2y ago
  We have a gold reserve...
Terr_ 2y ago
Even if everything is as rosy is all that, there's another big problem: Why would you want men with guns taking away your money (and mine) to buy crypto for their own uncontrolled slush-fund purposes, instead of letting you invest it yourself?? And no, don't even get me started on how Social Security is different, because insurance plans are not the same as the somebody else's investment account.

by kjksf 2y ago

pants2 2y ago

Though much of the controversy is around the inclusion of ripple, solana, and cardano. There's no reason to have these in the reserve. Might as well hold GME in there too.

krustyburger 2y ago
I love it when my government apes into things.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  Even worse: 1. Using money taken from you, preventing you from ape-ing-in yourself. 2. Doing it with zero promise that any future profits will benefit you, as opposed to offsetting a giant tax cut for the wealthy again.
desumeku 2y ago
You can't have stablecoins, smart contracts, and an entire crypto economy on Bitcoin alone. Trump said crypto capital. I'm personally expecting grocery stores to start showing you a QR code for stablecoin payment over your preferred chain next year.

wmf 2y ago

That wouldn't be a strategic reserve, just a speculative investment. You might ask why the US doesn't also invest in AAPL and NVDA. You might also consider the "soft power" effects of the US using the global middle class as exit liquidity.

kjksf 2y ago
Ignoring arguments on semantics (the meaning of "strategic"), here's the difference between AAPL or NVDA and Bitcoin. In the long term AAPL and NVDA market cap / stock price will converge to their future financial performance and historically speaking it's guaranteed that those companies will decline. So if you're looking for a really long term investment, it's not a good one. This is different than U.S. buying Alaska from Russia. There's only one Alaska, if U.S. has it then no-one else has it. Bitcoin was designed to have the same scarcity as land. There's only 21 million bitcoins and if you buy 5 of them today, no one else will own those 5 until you sell them. If you believe that Bitcoin will become the largest "store of value" asset class that any person, company or country buying Bitcoin today will benefit compared to people / companies / countries that do no buy Bitcoin today. Is such belief speculative? Of course it is. Buying Alaska from Russia was also speculative purchases. Not everyone thought it was a good deal and no-one knew it has gold and oil. Is there strategic benefit to U.S. to owning scarce financial asset? Well, U.S. does benefits from dollar's status as world's reserve currency. If Bitcoin does become planetary store of value and planetary currency, it's better for U.S. to own larger part of it than China or Russia or Iran.
- namaria 2y ago
  Cryptocurrency peddlers only have two arguments: fiat currency has no value, and bitcoin is gonna 10/100x in its fiat currency value. Well, which one is it? If a group of people has all the bitcoin in the future, and other people have possession of things they want/need... Well, the value of bitcoin will be zero unless you can compel people who possess actual useful and necessary things to accept it. Which you can do if you are a government with power of taxation. It actually has negative value, because you need the computers running the software that represents it to keep running. I really cannot figure why people think bitcoin is special. The value of money comes from the power of taxation, not from the underlying representation of the money.
senordevnyc 2y ago
We have a gold reserve...

Terr_ 2y ago

Even if everything is as rosy is all that, there's another big problem: Why would you want men with guns taking away your money (and mine) to buy crypto for their own uncontrolled slush-fund purposes, instead of letting you invest it yourself?? And no, don't even get me started on how Social Security is different, because insurance plans are not the same as the somebody else's investment account.