The US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The Bitcoin Standard could mean another century of American prosperity.
We propose that the United States Federal Government under direction from President Trump, empower and direct the US Treasury Department to make purchases of the cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin, with a goal of acquiring a plurality of said commodity.
This reserve should be held in trust on behalf of the American people.
Rationale
The US Dollar has reigned supreme as the de facto standard since 1944. While this status is not likely to change in the near term, it is in no way, an assumption that can carried far afield.
It should be noted that, it is assumed herein that USD global dominance has played a healthy, if not, essential role in US Global hegemony. Continued currency domination is vital to our national security.
While it is impossible to predict which store of value will usurp the American dollar. It is likely that the first implementation of the technology known as blockchain will be a contender.
Strategic Reserve
Hoarding commodities under the guise of National Security is not unprecedented. In fact, quite the opposite. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is a well-known cavern that keeps roughly 20 days worth of raw crude for use in the case of oil shortages and constraints.
While the SPR is not a speculative endeavor it does allow the federal government to direct purchasing and selling of a global commodity. These powers were enacted by an Act of Congress in 1973, this is not to say that commodity purchasing of any type can be undertaken by a president without any oversight. But a precedent for commodity purchasing has been set and is, by now, a well worn trail across the Constitution.
Vital to American Interests
The Federal government has repeatedly, over its esteemed history, acted to snatch up territory in the name of National Security. Thomas Jeffersons Louisiana Purchase being the most notable of these.
The federal government should act under the aegis of national security to acquire large swaths of the nascent Bitcoin. For trifling sums, the government can act to ensure US standing in the world under a theoretical but not far fetched global order that has embraced cryptocurrency (namely Bitcoin) as its unit of account.
Why
Not a generation of Americans that still walks the earth is not used to and in some ways, dependent upon, outsized US influence in the world. Amounting to just 5% of the global population, America is still considered, at least certainly by itself, to be the largest stakeholder on the global stage.
Radical shifts in monetary systems are not historically unprecedented. The US should arm itself for all reasonable eventualities. A Crypto monetary scheme would almost certainly involve Bitcoin.
The issues
The Federal Reserve will see this in exclusively negative terms. However an executive focused on restoring power to the people will inevitably realize the power they can buy FOR the people by purchasing a large quantity of Bitcoin and placing it in trust for the people themselves.
In fact, if true populist sympathies exist. This could enable the president to carve out a niche reserve that could exist outside the bounds of our traditionally understood three branch system.
If owned and controlled by the executive, that branch could suddenly find itself with purse strings of its own. Getting congress to approve such a plan would not happen knowingly but this is not impossible with amenable courts.
How to Acquire
Enlist market professional patriots pro-bono to setup and administer proper buying of said asset from exchanges around the world. Leverage CIA and NSA assets to cover most of the activity.
Public discovery of such a directive will be the biggest news in decades. It will shock markets. It will drive the price of Bitcoin skyward. And it will cause a scramble of all other nation states as they ramp up their own purchasing.
In this way, proper execution has a self-fulfilling aspect to it. US announcement that it has procured and will maintain a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve will instantly legitimate and drive skyward the price of Bitcoin.
Conclusion
Cryptocurrency is here. At present there are hundreds of varieties. But only one with the distinction of first and longest blockchain. That cryptocurrency is Bitcoin. Just as Jefferson saw the need for the federal government to acquire the land to his nations west. So too must our President see the strategic imperative present in Bitcoin. Acquiring a large stake could ensure American hegemony for another century.
This approach is preferable to a government led attempt to re-implement a blockchain of its own for so many obvious reasons that only a federal government bent on control over its citizens would not see it.
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