US selling 69K seized bitcoins could mess with Trump plans for crypto reserve
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The most aggrieving thing would be if the crypto grifters actually got Trump to legitimize bitcoin. Once a scam becomes an official government program it never ends.
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Inauguration day is January 20, 11 days and 5 working days away (taking the MLK holiday into account). I suspect this won't happen, given the typical speed that the government moves.
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Fortunately in this case, I doubt it would become entrenched. Any future President can undo it easily, and frankly, any such person with an interest in keeping the greenback valuable instead of enriching himself will.
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If we see social security payments made in bitcoin, I'm going to lose my mind.
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I don't believe Trump is going to do anything anyway. Prior to July, he had nothing positive to say and then in a close election decided to promise everything to everyone. A Bitcoin Reserve would require an act of Congress. Congress has shown no interest in doing anything like this.
Trump will sign the Bitcoin Reserve Act right after making Canada the 51st state, invading Greenland, playing UNO reverse card on the Panama Canal, and making the price of eggs $1.
I say that as someone who owns Bitcoin and personally would benefit, it just isn't happening. It is just Trump being Trump. I mean FFS looks at his explanation and the rest of the exchange not quoted there he drifted into talking about A. Meaning he thinks crypto and AI are the same thing or interconnected. He has also said things like we need to make sure Bitcoins are only made in the US. Like how the fuck would you even do that if you wanted to do that. He sure as hell doesn't know. He doesn't even know that it can't be done. He also said US crypto should be tax free again what is a US crypto? He doesn't know, his campaign doesn't know.
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So, how much of a kickback is Trump getting from crypto-bros for this plan? Or is he going to buy a bunch of bitcoin just before he implements the "reserve" plan? Maybe through one of his kids, anonymously?
Or will it just be his "buddies" that benefit? Who'd never engage in a quid pro quo with him. Right...
Or will it just be his "buddies" that benefit? Who'd never engage in a quid pro quo with him. Right...
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What's a "bitcoin reserve"? That sounds about as ridiculous as a banana reserve. Buy high, end up with nothing.
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I dunno, my thought is that this could just end up as one of the greatest heists of all time, with the US govt playing the roll of bagholder. The govt buys a ton of coins, inflating the price, people cash out faster than a govt can move, and....the reserve is now massively devalued.
To be clear, I hope this doesn't happen, but I would not be at all surprised if my tax dollars go directly to some crypto bro in the next few years.
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I’d say a nice final FU to Trump would be Biden selling all the BC reserves, but that would only encourage Trump. Maybe Biden should buy some and suggest Trump should continue the Biden legacy of the US gov buying bitcoin. Problem solved!
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I'm not sure the goal is for it to be "entrenched"
Grifters tend to be short-term oriented. Even a few billion in Bitcoin purchases from the US treasury would set the market on fire and enrich the people who are early on the grift. Domestic Bitcoin ETFs would grow exponentially due to their perceived legitimacy. This is usually the most dangerous stage of manic and irrational markets--when mom-and-pop investors start blindly pooling their funds into it.
This reminds me of the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper market pre-US housing crash, which tumbled once people lost faith in the worthless assets backing their ABCP held by mutual funds, ETF, etc. At its peak, the market was worth 1.18 trillion dollars. Bitcoin is already at 2 trillion since its scale is global, but that doesn't make the underlying asset any more valuable than ABCP. The story was too good to be true with ABCP as well--high yields for no risk, supported by all the accounting and auditing fraud we see in the crypto space.
The market can crash 5 or 10 years down the road, but the grifters promoting this crap do not care. They want easy profits now.
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If you lose your mind, you'll need those social security payments....
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Well, Trump's level of corruption is unprecedented for a POTUS so you could be right. It'd be sad though .
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If the US wants to truly lead the way then have the Treasury department implement a digital dollar instead of speculating on "currencies" that have value solely based on the belief that they have value.
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It is no where near that benign. His statement is a classic con man effort to exploit FOMO.
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A "bitcoin reserve" is a US taxpayer bailout of cryptobros. The ultimate fools if you will.
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Genuinely - I wonder how many people involved with bitcoin today, from the grifters to the regular joe who heard it was a neat thing that they might make money off of, to the crazies to the people who have $50 in it for the novelty, even know that that was a thing people believed at first.
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How will we survive as a nation if the Chinese corner the market on imaginary magic beans?
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It made more sense back in the day when it was feasible to mine your own, there wasn't a million professional exchanges, and people weren't tracing the movements of every transaction. It still wasn't very useful, but it made more sense than it does now.
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How many congress critters would be needed to pass this? 218, right? And 51 senators. $1M each, $269M for Elon (he'll love that it ends in 69!). After he legitimizes X-coin as the only official currency of the US, of which he holds 98%, we're all truly fucked.
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That one is a little easier. I'd assume it's taxes owed on using crypto for transactions as a US taxpayer:
https://www.coinbase.com/learn/crypto-basics/understanding-crypto-taxes
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Now don't go slamming bananas. If the bananas come with a certificate of authenticity, duck tape, and appropriately detailed instructions, you could end up with millions.
And at least you could make banana bread.
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I think you assume too much. It also would be the ultimate zero taxes loophole. If purchases with Bitcoin are tax-free, then I would never sell a Bitcoin again. I would use Bitcoin to buy gold. Then sell the gold for cash. Zero taxes for defacto selling Bitcoin. At that point you might as well remove the half step and make Bitcoin tax free but why?
However, all this illustrates how unlikely any of this is. Trump rambling on about things he knows nothing about in vague terms, most of which he simply can't do without congress who has no interest in doing it. It isn't like this is even a high priority for MAGAs.
Now deporting illegal immigrants, especially the brown skinned ones? Yeah Congress is going to rubber stamp that. Likely not going to be as many people as Trump claims, but it is something Trump wants and MAGA favors and Congress too scared to say no. This? Not so much.
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I'm just waiting for the day that someone breaks the encryption on some of Satoshi Nakamoto's original Bitcoin stash.
Miners monitor these first bitcoins closely and as soon as a single one is redeemed the Bitcoin market is going to sink like a rock as they try to exit the market ahead of the crash.
Miners monitor these first bitcoins closely and as soon as a single one is redeemed the Bitcoin market is going to sink like a rock as they try to exit the market ahead of the crash.
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Are you kidding? He already got his kickback. Bitcoin was the number one donor to the RNC in 2024. They got exactly what they wanted
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All that money could help the long term homeless, veterans with PSTD , the elderly with their prescription drugs and people with addiction issues
Then you realized that's not what the wealthy want in this country
Then you realized that's not what the wealthy want in this country
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Agreed. I understand why they feel it's preferable to extract funds from seized assets where possible, but this stuff will just end up fueling more crime. Reducing the total supply will harm no one, will burn no carbon, and costs nothing.
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Reducing the supply would make the remaining coins more valuable. Bitcoin would spike on the news. The current expectation is 69,000 BTC will be sold quickly. If instead it is not only not sold but permanently destroyed, it would be a rally. The US destroying it would be idiotic, and in fact the DOJ is obligated to sell confiscated assets. Cars, houses, yachts, artwork, gold bars, and yeah now Bitcoin. Everything gets auctioned off for dollars and the funds sent to the US Treasury.
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I was not aware. Drugs are regularly destroyed, right? I assumed other things could be, too. My mistake, then.
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Well, once upon a time we had currency tied to the gold reserve. And yeah, that didn't work out too well for people when we went off of it, either, mostly because the regulatory structure hadn't been put into place. I don't expect this to fare any better.
So now that they're tying it to a neurotic's castle in the air, I expect total economic devastation.
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A month ago, I would've said Trump would never support something that would damage the dollar's place in the world, because his wealth depends on dollars being worth something. But this whole "Canada, Greenland, Panama, and Mexico" threat has probably already started that ball rolling, even if Trump only threatens to do it.
I'm betting there are already some very serious discussions with other big players on responding to Trump's threats in a way that puts an end to this before the first shot goes off. We might already be on a journey we no longer can control, just because the idiot decided he might upend our friendships around the world. Imagine waking up one day in February/March and finding out the developed world just formed a massive trade embargo against us. We would be in grave trouble and it would be our own doing.
Maybe he is planning to actually have a "Bitcoin reserve", whatever that is supposed to actually entail. It's such a ridiculous notion, that I'm convinced he might purposely be trying to destroy us.
I'm betting there are already some very serious discussions with other big players on responding to Trump's threats in a way that puts an end to this before the first shot goes off. We might already be on a journey we no longer can control, just because the idiot decided he might upend our friendships around the world. Imagine waking up one day in February/March and finding out the developed world just formed a massive trade embargo against us. We would be in grave trouble and it would be our own doing.
Maybe he is planning to actually have a "Bitcoin reserve", whatever that is supposed to actually entail. It's such a ridiculous notion, that I'm convinced he might purposely be trying to destroy us.
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