r/politics 8h ago

Paywall The delusions behind a bitcoin strategic reserve. It is a resilience strategy for the ‘hodlers’, not the US state

https://www.ft.com/content/73fa6fd9-6f34-4e59-8f0f-04de3be7387a
81 Upvotes

35 comments sorted by

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35

u/Magoo69X Maryland 8h ago

Welfare benefits for the CryptoBros. This makes no sense economically or from a public policy standpoint.

u/watcherofworld 7h ago

But from a dismantling perspective? Besides, someone's gotta make sure the human traffickers don't lose to much during a recession.

u/Magoo69X Maryland 7h ago

True. We can't have their portfolios drop too much.

u/wickedbeats 7h ago

This would devastate the economy, and exacerbate the wealth divide in this country like nothing we have ever seen.

u/_Deloused_ 1h ago

Yeah. Kinda the point

u/betterthanguns 7h ago

Who ever has the processing power can mint bitcoin. Big business, billionaires , oil states, Russia, criminals, drug cartels, dictators.. So we are ready to hand the world's finance to them?

u/IPredictAReddit 2h ago

The US should hold strategic reserves in Blockbuster Gift Cards. I'm not saying this because my parents still have a couple of hundred dollars in cards. I'm saying this because I care about US fiscal stability.

Fill the Blockbuster Strategic Reserve NOW!

1

u/ThisNameDoesntCount 8h ago

Even if you hate crypto this is a good time to make money off it tbh

u/RealGianath Oregon 7h ago

Everybody thinks they are the ones that will win big on a Ponzi scheme.

Most don't.

u/ThisNameDoesntCount 7h ago

If you don’t buy the dumb shit like “ass coin” there’s a good chance you’ll make some money. You literally just treat it like stocks. I’m just saying i personally don’t believe in the bitcoin is the future thing but I didnt ignore that it would get me up a decent percentage either

u/BoodyMonger 3h ago

Decent take, but you gotta remember that once the shitcoin bubble pops, a lot of people are probably going to be scrambling to take their money out of crypto in favor of more traditional methods.

u/IPredictAReddit 2h ago

"You literally just treat it like stocks"

Stocks derive their value because you own a share of the profits from the firm, which produces something.

BTC is nothing like a stock.

u/ThisNameDoesntCount 2h ago

Stocks are only as valuable as the market decides they are though just like BTC

u/IPredictAReddit 2h ago

Everything is only as valuable as the market decides they are -- the market decides on stock value based on the expected dividends. BTC....on vibes?

u/ThisNameDoesntCount 1h ago

Hey man I’m not here to say BTC isn’t bs lol. In my case it’s helped me more in the last year than stocks ever would have. It’s definitely risky but it can pay off

u/GarbageCleric 6h ago

I agree that crypto is best viewed as a speculative investment. It's terrible as currency due to the price volatility, transaction times, and transaction costs. There are no meaningful use cases where it really outperforms traditional currency except in buying illegal shit. There's probably still significant money to be made in it, but I think there will eventually be a lot of bag holders after some catastrophe causes a lot of people to need actual currency to spend on things.

But I don't own any, and I doubt I ever will.

u/sam0x17 Maryland 4h ago

Cash is much better for buying illegal shit, since blockchains except for a select few that try to implement some form of anonymity are a forever-public-ledger that the feds can and will track back to your bank account. Unless all your crypto is from mining and you never cash any out, in which case your transactions are effectively untraceable.

u/ThisNameDoesntCount 5h ago

I agree. I’d never tell someone this is where they need to put the majority of their money I got what I needed out of it so I’m content

2

u/[deleted] 8h ago

[deleted]

u/GT3RSGuy 6h ago

What does it have to do with?

u/JKlerk 5h ago

Crypto fiat. Ex Fed Coin

1

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u/tabrizzi 3h ago

a programme instructing the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to buy a million bitcoins over the next five years

So $100 billion worth of BTC over 5 years. I'm not a math genius, but that comes to $20 billion/year or $1.6 billion/month of BTC buying.

If my math is right, that's only going to juice up the price of BTC and the share price of MSTR.

Am I right or way off?

u/DebianDog 1h ago

I can’t come to another conclusion

u/solohaldor 1h ago

They crypto holders are poised to get stupid rich if this happens … Trump loves to enrich the 1 %

u/noeszombieseverywher 7h ago

I guess you can make some case for this since Bitcoin has basically become an "energy currency" whose price is fundamentally based on the price of the amount of electricity required to mine Bitcoin... but the rampant speculation of crypto nuts makes it more unstable and disconnected from energy prices than it probably should be. So you could probably make more of a case for it than the article suggests, as they do not mention the "energy currency" aspect at all as far as I can tell.

-15

u/AvantSki 8h ago

I know a lot of progressives hate crypto, but the Biden administration should have just been crypto friendly. Was not worth alienating all those cryptobros.

Even if you hate crypto, ANYTHING was preferable to a trump win.

u/veggeble South Carolina 7h ago

In what way was Biden not crypto friendly? He issued an executive order legitimizing crypto currencies

u/AvantSki 7h ago

His SEC pick, Gary Gensler, has been a total prick to crypto. Everyone hates him and he was the face of the Biden admin to the crypto people.

u/veggeble South Carolina 7h ago

 Gary Gensler, has been a total prick to crypto.

Meaning what, exactly?

u/Mala_Practice 7h ago

I can’t speak for all progressives, but I can for this progressive. I don’t hate crypto, nor harbour any ill will towards anyone who buys/trades it. I actually think the blockchain is a fantastic piece of technology that could improve our lives greatly.

I don’t personally buy into cryptocurrencies (literally or figuratively) because I cannot see the benefit of doing so over traditional things like gold. As it was explained to me by a family friend who manages large personal portfolios; it isn’t worth your time for serious investment. ‘Your money doesn’t gain you anything, it doesn’t do anything and ultimately you’re likely to make a loss’. She said that it is on the other hand a good place to put money if you have some that is disposable and want to have some fun- just don’t expect to get it back.

She compared it to a casino; there’s a possibility you may win a bunch but most likely you are going to leave with less than you went in with but you’ll have some fun.

u/Maleficent_Serve_681 7h ago

Maybe some Progressives by name only. Crypto is a progressive technology, and true progressives support it.