You would think that anyone who floated a meme coin that tanked instantly and has got a lot worse since would have some reservations about creating a “strategic national digital assets stockpile”.
Nope.
Nosiree nohowdy.
Not in a month of insanities.
The World’s Greatest Businessman shrewdly named a bag of various cryptocurrencies, for the reserve, the prices of which promptly soared.
To be strictly objective, the people who buy in to this hype should know what they’re getting into. They assist in the hype and promptly go broke. This is now more a behavioral routine than any sort of investment strategy.
You’d have to have a genetic predisposition to Liar’s Poker to like this idea.
If you check out Bitcoin’s 10-year price history, you’ll see that it took 5 years to get noticed in 2015. It went through a patch of rises during the pandemic, did little between December 2022 and January 2024, went way up in November 2024, It is now bouncing around about 20% below its peak.
The rises make the “news”, and they’re only part of the story. The price drops are what wipe people out, and there are a lot of them. Margin trading in Bitcoin is like dancing ballet in midair. The downside always has to be watched. Bitcoin is fundamentally speculative at best, and it’s the best of the cryptos.
People do make a lot of money out of Bitcoin, but that’s mainly big investors. You can short sell Bitcoin as a hedge, but the price can move dramatically.
The obvious question is how useful are the cryptos likely to be as a reserve? Price stability is the exception rather than the rule. If it was a commodity, which is the semi-fair description of price moves, you’d have to be wary and cover yourself.
There have been a grand total of two big upward moves in Bitcoin in 10 years. As a normal investment, most of the time you’d ignore it. Check out the margins in price moves over the last year. Those price drops were fast. The biggest margin was from $53K to $106K from September 2024 through January 2025.
OK, how often does anything double in price? The price bounces around with every hint of Trump’s involvement. Stable? No. Exceptional? Yes.
The other obvious question is how much money would be involved in a strategic national digital assets stockpile”. Now figure out the losses and downsides per day on a $100 billion investment.
Should Metamucil cut its losses and admit it’s licked? Maybe.
The country could lose a lot of weight in dollars in a hurry if this turns into the Biblical cluster it looks like.
Can you wipe out a lot of government financial assets in a few seconds?
Are you in any hurry to find out?
Bearing in mind that you’re ultimately paying for it?
You could legislate protections for government assets.
Legislating to protect private assets is a lot harder, and far more sensitive.
You can’t really fix a price unless you want to regulate the entire sector.
Crypto is likely to be the very distant ancestor of future currency but not like this. There are no safeguards. If you lose, you lose big.
The risks are way too high. They need to put in safeguards and for a nice change, kill the hype.
________________________________________________________
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
