Trump proposes a U. S. Bitcoin Strategic Reserve

[surfered]

If he had been President of Holland in 1634, I assume he would have proposed a strategic Tulip Reserve

https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/12/14/trump-confirms-bitcoin-reserve-plans-15-trillion-price-boom-predicted/


DU'ers with Bitcoin knowledge, please weigh in on what appears to me to be sheer lunacy.

[Tommy Carcetti]

1. A picture of the US Bitcoin Strategic Reserve is here:

[milestogo]

34. These too.

[Faux pas]

35. Lol

I was just explaining to a friend the other day that bitcoin, and all things like it, are as good as monopoly money! Great minds and all that....except you have the picture!

[dalton99a]

2. NEXT: Trump wants U.S. to invest trillions in Florida timeshares

[Attilatheblond]

8. Too bad the Ginsu Kives, and Parachute Luggage guys never made it to the White House, huh?

The new name for our nation is: The Not United States of Racketeering.

[John1956PA]

3. If the U S. government starts buying, the price will skyrocket.

Bitcoin price is now about $102K. If the government starts buying, the price might more than double in a short time. However, no long term climb is assured. The strategy is akin to the government investing in mutual funds.

[Lonestarblue]

17. Mutual funds are at least underpinned by actual businesses.

Bitcoin seems based on whatever someone says it’s worth. There’s really nothing that can be sold if the market tanks. Trump would stand to rake in millions from this deal.

[rampartd]

20. more like investing in a ponzi scheme that has run out of new "investors."

[lostnfound]

25. An economist i read said its a zero-sum game, when bitcoin is bought, dollar value goes down

A ‘strategic bitcoin reserve’ may enrich the few (particularly russia, for example) while tanking the dollar. I suspect it would be beyond destabilizing.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. He has no money for school lunches but gigabucks for crypto bros. . . . . nt

[dalton99a]

6. +1

[PSPS]

5. A trillion-dollar pump-and-dump from the treasury into crypto bros offshore accounts

A portion of which will be laundered into trump's pocket.

[bucolic_frolic]

7. Crypto fluctuates along with gold, most of the time

but it's supply is regulated like taxi medallions or liquor licenses. It's a fiat currency, which have been around a long time. In severe crises, economic or financial, the public could lose faith in a fiat currency. I see it more as an attempt to evade taxation than anything else. It's a con on the public's gullibility.

[Blue Full Moon]

12. Based on the stock market

[sop]

9. "...with Bitcoin knowledge"

I'm sure someone will come along "with Bitcoin knowledge" and explain it all to us soon enough. As for me, I've been trying to find someone who will explain the whole Bitcoin thing to me for years. I guess I'm just not smart enough.

[Kid Berwyn]

10. That didn't take long.

Putting the US Taxpayer on the hook at Casino fElon.

[underpants]

14. They used to at least distract us fighting over nickels for welfare

while they backed up the truck to the Treasury (Reagan - Poppa Bush S&L ‘s - W - and Trump tax cuts) now they are doing wide out in the open.

[Kid Berwyn]

22. GOP has the transfer of wealth down to a science

In Trickle Down, the gangster at the top decides how much to sprinkle upon those below.

During the S&L crisis of the late 80s-early 90s, the crooks that stole about a trillion LARGELY got to keep their loot. The theft was largely legal ("I went bankrupt, yeah, that's the ticket!" ) and made possible by federal deregulation and the US Taxpayer now backing risky loans.

During the Banking crisis of 2008, the crooks that stole trillions not only got to keep it, they were paid bonuses. The theft was largely legal ("How were we supposd to know all them bums couldn't pay us back?" ) and made possible by federal deregulation and the US Taxpayer again backing risky loans.

Excellent analogy of the armored car backed up to the Treasury. Semion Mogilevich told the short-fingered Goldfinger the Treasury is where the real money is -- greenbacks backed by the US Taxpayer.

[underpants]

33. 👍

[Walleye]

11. He is desperately trying to impress Elon

[Irish_Dem]

13. He is hell bent on being the richest man in the world with his schemes and scams.

And doesn't give a damn if he ruins the US and world economy.

[hueymahl]

15. Not popular around here

But Bitcoin is legitimate.

It is a long discussion that delves into the theory of money and how economies organize themselves around it.

A VERY short example is why do we consider gold to be valuable? Sure, there is some industrial uses for it. People think it is pretty for jewelry (but gold plate is just as "pretty). So on pure economic terms, it might be valued at 5-10% of what it currently is except for society's determination that it is a store of value. Prior to gold, societies have valued silver, copper, salt, sea shells, bronze spades, and in modern times, printed paper issued by fiat exchangeable for gold. Until it wasn't when we went off the gold standard in '71. Ultimately that printed paper is now represented primarily by ones and zeros on computers. Bitcoin is the latest evolution of money. Just like the essentially worthless items before it, it has value because people believe it has value and it is scare. Like gold, it takes vast amounts of energy to "create" (dig up in the case of gold, solve complex equations in the case of bitcoin)

The biggest revolution of bitcoin is it is trustless and finite. Finite meaning there will only ever be 21 million of them. Trustless in the sense that it can be exchanged across vast distances without the need for a trusted intermediary.

I can point those that are interested into a bunch of interesting reads. Or try to answer questions the best I can.

[Prairie Gates]

23. Pfffft

[hueymahl]

29. Lol

[FalloutShelter]

16. FFS... IT'S A HEIST!

That is all.

[Phoenix61]

18. I have an acquaintance who is very,very techy.

I told him bit coin seems like an electronic Ponzi scheme. He didn’t disagree.
On edit
Now we know why the POS wants congresses appropriations powers. Imagine the US paying for anything, everything in bitcoin.

[Blue Full Moon]

19. Interesting video about crypto

Another post about crypto
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219797635

?si=o6ai-ToBJwB83PoU

[OneGrassRoot]

24. Dave Troy has been warning about this for ages. He has been warning that Trump et al plan to crash the economy...

and try to set bitcoin as our new currency, when the only people that will benefit are -- surprise -- the tech bro oligarchy.

This is from before the election. He may have written something more recent. I also just copied and pasted the first four paragraphs because I don't have time to search for the most applicable to your thread. But for anyone interested, please do find and read more of his warnings. He has been spot on for a long time.

https://davetroy.medium.com/to-split-the-world-in-two-a-closing-argument-5ac36de9f419

This election isn’t just about the future of the United States, it will determine the future of the world. It is a linchpin in a strategy to split the world into two warring factions; the side that wins will own the future.

The vision offered by Putin and Xi (with Musk, Thiel, Vance, Trump, and RFK Jr as their surrogates) is a world where men trump women, rape trumps consent, Ukraine is Russia, Taiwan is China, and the Dollar is trash. In this world, Bitcoin, DogeCoin, and gold matter more than your 401(k). A vote for Musk is a vote for xenophobia, and a world where science only matters when it serves your interests. It is a vision for the end of America, because henceforth, it shall have a king.

Their vision is one where climate concerns will be worked out by the free market and, magically, through “abundance” — of both fossil fuels and CO2. They acknowledge we will have many problems, certainly, but they will be solved by entrepreneurs, philosopher kings, and their neo-feudal army of non-unionized wage slaves, all “competing” in the free market for the benefit of humanity. And our reward, they say, will be to colonize Mars — a truly uninhabitable hellscape that will likely never support human life.

Electing Harris will not stop this attack. But it will slow it down and allow some time to mount a response to this threat. Putin, Xi and a growing list of autocratic allies are joining forces to render democracy extinct. They believe it doesn’t work, they believe our populations are too infantile to make decisions, and furthermore they insist not only that our democracies don’t work, but that they will demonstrate it by capturing them and disabling them. If democracies are to survive globally, we must offer more than just an extension of the status quo: we must offer a vision of a democratic future that is more compelling to the majority of the world. By many measures, we have failed, so far, to meet that challenge.

[unblock]

26. And the bitcoin market shrugs.

Barely moving

[hueymahl]

30. There has not been an announcement yet.

This was an article from December

[unblock]

32. Ah, I was going to say, this has been a known plan for a while...

[VMA131Marine]

27. There are only about 1,000,000 bitcoins left to be mined

out of a total of 21,000,000 possible bitcoins.

And, of course, each successive bitcoin gets more and more energy intensive to “mine.”

[surfered]

36. Thank you. How is Bitcoin limited to 21 million? Who enforces this limit?

[VMA131Marine]

37. The limit is in the Bitcoin mining process itself

Bitcoin miners receive a certain number of Bitcoin for each block they mine but the more Bitcoins are mined, the lower the reward for each block. In fact, the number of coins halves every so many blocks. After enough halvings the reward is effectively zero.

https://www.kraken.com/learn/how-many-bitcoin-are-there-bitcoin-supply-explained

[Blue Full Moon]

28. The end game?

?si=QAr4cx4R2nJQXh7U

[Jacson6]

31. Some employee will leave the Bitcoin keys on a web server where a hacker will steal them.

Then the hacker can cash out the Bitcoin of $1T.