25 pointsby pseudolus2 days ago6 comments
  • avidiax2 days ago
    Sounds like a wealth transfer to anyone holding Bitcoin.

    And probably another constitutional crisis if he tries to spend federal money to buy Bitcoin without congressional approval, even if that's not in his order.

    Perhaps he's trying to return to a combined crypto+gold standard?

    • waycha day ago
      Given that this strategic reserve is to be built from all the various civil and criminal asset forfeitures, and not actually buying any crypto currency, how exactly is this considered a "wealth transfer"?

      This is centralizing governance of forfeited assets from across the many agencies that are currently holding wallets with no direction, into a single place: the Treasury. This seems far favorable to letting various (430+) agencies manage these valuable assets on their own where they can easily be lost, stolen, etc.

      • wmfa day ago
        It reduces sell pressure. I don't know how to estimate what that's worth.
      • iwontberudea day ago
        Being a baggie for bitcoin begs the question that it’s necessarily going to increase over time. Given that Blackrock recently published a video reiterating the ground truth that there is no ultimate guarantee that the finite supply of bitcoin could not be increased, there are signs maybe this isn’t so bulletproof.
        • npoca day ago
          Blackrock are wrong.

          No one will ever persuade me to or vast swathes of other bitcoin node runners, to run a version of bitcoin with a higher cap. It devalues our bitcoin. It devalues bitcoin full-stop.

          Sure, a new fork can be, and in fact are, created with a higher cap, but why would people choose it over a harder system with a lower issuance?

          Even if it somehow took hold, the old harder version of bitcoin would beat the newer softer version just like it's beating the soft fiat money we currently use.

          • iwontberude18 hours ago
            I think the unspoken rationale is that governments can compel you to destroy a market. Look at when the US seized all of the gold in May of 1933. Blackrock operates in time scales where this sort of risk awareness is relevant.
    • k12sossea day ago
      The economic turmoil is making the people with the knowledge very rich, every day. This is the lesser spoken role of the volatility this gov is creating.

      Kill confidence, buy 25% dips, hint at future announcements, sell at 35% gains. The inner circle with the timeline are just consolidating that wealth at the expense of a lot of the most vulnerable - the blind hopeless follower gambling beyond logic.

      • > at the expense of a lot of the most vulnerable - the blind hopeless follower gambling beyond logic.

        The more concerning victims are the very many people whose retirements are heavily if not entirely invested in the stock market through 401ks, etc.

        Can't wave that group away with moral hazard arguments and if the Republicans get their way across the board they'll be getting a double whammy in terms of their retirement investments being in tatters and Social Security being mostly destroyed as well.

      • manbarta day ago
        This is the scam, the chaos is intentional
    • jordanba day ago
      > Sounds like a wealth transfer to anyone holding Bitcoin.

      Don't forget XRP, solana and whatever else David Sachs is involved with.

    • netsharca day ago
      > Perhaps he's trying to return to a combined crypto+gold standard?

      I'm pretty sure Trump's too dumb to understand the arguments why such a system would be good, if anything it'd be all the crypto-bro billionaires who made their boy Vance VP. Or perhaps it's just all a pump and dump for them...

      • avidiaxa day ago
        He seems to be emulating McKinley, down to using tarriffs to pressure Canada into being the 51st state, and the Gold Standard Act.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Standard_Act

        • timeona day ago
          > He seems to be

          He is 79 years old, I do not thing that it is he who is emulating. Rather people who told him to do that.

  • abircha day ago
    Remember this is an executive order. The next president can sell them all to pay for a pet project.
    • jxjnskkzxxhxa day ago
      Remember when trump used to criticise Obama because he used too many executive orders?
      • pazimzadeha day ago
        Not just trump but all republicans. They also used to criticize Obama for saying he’s willing to meet and talk to Putin.
  • kevinventullo2 days ago
    “…the United States Government shall not acquire additional Stockpile Assets other than in connection with criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings or in satisfaction of any civil money penalty imposed by any agency without further executive or legislative action.”
    • jfima day ago
      That's interesting, it basically means that the coins that are seized are basically out of the market, increasing the value of the coins left in circulation. However, at some point the US government could start to liquidate a large position, causing a downward pressure on prices.

      I wonder how large this stockpile is compared to the total number of coins in circulation.

      • mtnGoata day ago
        So basically nothing is changing, because in theory any of those agencies could have sold those in the past and some did. Now it’s just centralizing control… kind of ironic for a decentralized currency.
      • sschuellera day ago
        How long until the keys are lost?
    • jacinabox20 hours ago
      that's nice, but the US digital asset stockpile is not the strategic bitcoin reserve. The sentence that controls acquisition in the strategic bitcoin reserve is the one before it:

      'The Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Commerce shall develop strategies for acquiring additional Government BTC provided that such strategies are budget neutral and do not impose incremental costs on United States taxpayers.'

      I wonder what budget neutral means. Does it mean that they have to find spending cuts in other areas in order to acquire additional BTC?

    • krfsma day ago
      Does that last bit about "any civil money penalty" mean you can pay your fines with your own meme coin at face value, without having to sell them and thereby tank the value?
  • torloka day ago
    Is it normal that the background section reads like a random Reddit post?
  • a day ago
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  • ChrisArchitect20 hours ago
    Some thoughts:

    The Strategic Crypto Swindle

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43270398

    Trump's 'Crypto Reserve' Is Such Brazen Corruption

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43261899

    The “strategic reserve” exposes crypto as the scam it always was

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43236752