PieFedlol they're gonna sell the Fort Knox gold to buy bitcoins
David Gerardfinance.yahoo.com/news/white-house-says-gold-re…
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Or chicklets if they don't have change. But you watch out, if you come back home with chicklets your mom and dad are gonna be pissed. So best to chew them before getting home.
SludgehammerSo... I'm guessing the plebs get the cryptocurrencies. Which are backed by stablecoins... which are backed by tech grifters saying "I can cover it bro, trust me".
Meanwhile the elites will take all that worthless gold and dispose of it for us.
Bitcoin is backed by the price of coal.
For all intents and purposes, bitcoin is effectively minted coal.
Deleted by moderator
That's probably a better way to put it yeah.
And as fucked as it is, it is a fact that this does hold value and is backed by it.
It's just a pretty shit thing to be backed by ethically.
But nonetheless, there is value in bitcoin, it's just best we don't encourage further investment in such a thing.
So it’s backed by climate change?
Yep. It's unethical but nonetheless makes the coin actually have tangible holdings, because it's actually impacting the real world.
yes but remember it artifically inflates so the amount of coal its worth is always going higher. You need way more coal to make one down than you did ten years ago.
treadfulThe looting of US treasure begins.
_lilithSo. America got bought by a vulture capitalist and they are selling off assets.
UnderpantsWeevilDumbest. Fucking. Idea. Ever
KneeTittsWell no its actually a perfect method of looting the treasury and handing all the country's future wealth to the billionaires now, making them trillionaires, and all in a way thats essentially impossible to track...
Copying my comment from this same story, other thread on another instance/community:
...
These actual mouth breathing morons have no idea what they are even attempting to describe.
...
https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/does-the-federal-reserve-own-or-hold-gold.htm
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_certificate_(United_States)
...
The Federal Reserve doesn't actually own, nor physically possess, any physical gold, that they could just sell off or speculate with.
When FDR outlawed gold private ownership in 1934, all physical gold was handed over to the US Treasury, and the Federal Reserve (and other banks) were given gold certificates, valued at $42.22... per ounce... a set value that hasn't changed, and is used for the Fed's modest valuation of its previously held gold reserves... which are utterly insignificant and dwarfed by the other assets it holds.
(This isn't super current, but it gives you an idea. Light blue is gold certificates. Its a one pixel thin line at the bottom. The overall balance is even more huge than this now after Covid, and Gold Certs, even if they were revalued from $42.2222 to the current market rate, would basically be small, it would go from about 10 billion to 750 billion, when the Fed's current total assets are about 7 trillion)
About 5% of the US Treasury's gold is held at the New York Fed, but the Fed doesn't own it, it's just there because there is a vault there. The rest of the US's gold is physically held at Treasury operated locations.
...
What the Fed does own are Gold Certificates, back from 1934, which are still valued at the old $42.2222 price, in terms of the Fed calculating its own balance sheet.
To... have the US gov... order the Fed to sell off its gold certificates... that's not a thing the US gov can actually legally do, not without asserting total direct control over the Fed, and thus basically instantly making its existence pointless...
Again, to repeat, the US government cannot legally command the Fed to sell off its gold certificates, the Fed cannot legally sell its gold certificates, nor could said certificates be legally exchanged for actual physical gold from the US Treasury.
This would be approximately analagous to the US government ordering a corporation to sell off its own capital assets and then just sending the money from that sale to a government account.
It is expropriation.
For this to be any kind of legal, they'd have to repeal or greatly amend ... at least the laws that established the Federal Reserve, and the Gold Reserve Act, likely many more... or basically do a whole bunch of rat fuckery to get their own people in positions on various Fed Reserve boards, and possibly prevent other people on Fed Reserve boards from actually voting on motions.
This would amount to basically performing a coup on the US's central banking system, and putting total control of the monetary system within the Treasury.
...
This would upend the century old bedrock of the US's financial system.
Now, I am no full, uncritical advocate of the Federal Reserve system in its current form... but this is what it is, a complete usurpation of the US's existing monetary system, which would then be put in charge of the astoundingly incompetent current administration.
This is how you get hyperinflation.
This is quite literally fucking with the money at its most fundamental level.
This is how you speed run destroying the USD as the world reserve currency.
...
tldr;
This isn't only stupid in the sense of 'sell gold to buy bitcoin' is a dubious investment strategy, it is particularly stupid in that if the actual pursued strategy is 'force the Fed to sell its gold certificates'...
(to who? its not legal for any private entity to 'purchase' them at the market rate for gold, nor is it legal for said hypothetical purchaser, not even the Fed, to actually redeem them for physical gold, nor is it even legal for the Fed to sell them even of its own accord!)
... then that method blows up the entire concept of a legally defined, semi-independent Federal Reserve, and that then blows up the entire basis of the US monetary system.
Ah, so they are coming for the federal reserve as a whole. Makes sense actually, Trump wants that money.
... Its possibly actually more concerning than the idea that the giant orange man baby has access to the nukes and that Elon fired all the people in charge of... you know, maintaining and guarding the nukes.
You can cause almost as much damage across the country and entire world by giving an idiot the keys to the USD money printer, and its a lot easier for an idiot to do that damage via monetary debasement than it is for them go DEFCON 'time to kill everyone everywhere spectacularly' with the nukes.
MAGA doesn’t hear you. MAGA don’t care.
You don't have to tell me, I know.
Thats why I'm ... vent-splaining? on lemmy.
I haven't talked to my MAGA father in almost 3 years now. He fell all the way down the QAnon rabbit hole, and ... is just delusional, just insane.
I spent literal years, years going through every single nonsense belief he had, showing him its actual origin, explaining in detail, tracing the entire evolution of the story from proximal exposure to root source.... that its always either entirely baseless speculation, often based on no actual evidence, or a wildly spun out of context story that leaves out 90% of the important details and context, just focusing on a highly misleading cherry picked narrative.
It doesn't matter. He picks up insane nonsense and instantly believes it 10x faster than I can debunk it, he lies and says he's not reading some non credible news source for a month and then comes at me with a story he only could have gotten from that news source, when you actually corner him in an argument he laughs and instsntly switches back to some other insane nonsense I already debunked months ago but he forgot about that.
Talking to a MAGA person is worse than talking to a wall, its talking to a zombie who is only decaying in the brain, a cult member thats in denial they're in a cult.
Brave Little Hitachi WandAh buddy... Ah shit. You're smart and I value your infodump/vents. This one was pure hell. I need a lie down.
Now ladies and gentlemen I will astound you with demonstration of my mighty mystical methods. Right before your very eyes I will make this gold disappear. Not just to your eyes, not just to thin air, but such that it will only be a logical concept of worth. One, two, three...............
Curiously, thanks to Trump Gold has been breaking record after record on the upside since January - you see, Gold is the ultimate "oh, shit" form of wealth storage because it's its own "currency" (so if traditional currencies lose value gold just goes up in those currencies) so people flock to it in situations of high Economic uncertainty, and Economic uncertainty is the only achievement of Trump's Administration.
I am guessing that Musk will create a Muskcoin, and offer to 'sell' it for a preferable rate to the US government. Coincidentally, the Muskcoin uses the X Everything platform for all transactions.
With each day that passes, I am becoming more convinced that shifting 99% of my money into Euros is the right call.
CharlesDarwinWith each day that passes, I am becoming more convinced that shifting 99% of my money into Euros is the right call.
Yeah, until fElon "enters the chat" on the EU situation just like he has in the U.S.
CorkyskogHow much money do you have? At the current state of affairs the best possible investment is to buy pallets of ammo and crates full of AR lowers.
qwertilliopasdtouches nose Why risk your money on gold or silver when you can invest in brass? Pretty good odds on another spicy summer in America.
Many times more than $500, but far below $100,000. In any case, I am thinking that if WW3 starts up, I can buy war bonds from the places that oppose Dogey America. Probably fiscally safer and more effective than buying ammo as an individual, since states can do better bulk purchases and negotiations with that money. Hopefully my neck of the woods would disobey Trump orders to outlaw the purchase of foreign war bonds.
I am not even talking about a war scenario. The college near me has guest finance speakers and once in 2006 they described how a few investors were renting warehouse space and buying bullets as a hedge and ar lowers as a speculatory investment with little downside. I am assuming they must have made a killing I'm profits.
You need a sizeable amount of investment money to do it at a scale where storage costs don't eat into your profits though.
I know an old hardware store, the kind that is about half the size of a Home Depot. That building and the lot around it has been empty for nearly a decade by now. Aside from likely being dilapidated from not having humans, it should be a pretty good building for stowing gear. Hopefully, my Euros when converted into dollars will be able to buy cheap real estate for a good cause.
MoreFPSmorebetterWhat a great fucking idea. Let's take a physical limited resource mineral and trade it for an untraceable and unregulated made up currency.
Holy shit I'm gonna have a stroke.
If you want to reward your high profile friends so they can cash out with tangible assets before the whole currency or economy crashes, this is how you would do things.
Step 1: Put everything in crypto
Step 2: Economy crashes, society no longer has power or running water.
Step 3: Try to sell crypto but for some reason computer won't turn on.
Bitcoin absolutely is traceable. Addresses might not be clear names, but all transactions are public. Which makes me wonder why the government wants to use Bitcoin.
explodicleBecause they'll pass it through a mixer on the way to boss Putin.
Because the crypto currency industry spent an absolutely ungodly amount of money helping Trump get elected.
The government buying and holding Bitcoin pumps up the price of Bitcoin. This is just the other side of the quid pro quo. They got him elected, now he has to make them richer.
So couple things:
- Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) are certainly not untraceable. Public ledger means that all the transactions are publicly visible - if you can associate a wallet to a person or organization then you know where the money went, and there are businesses that specifically do that kind of research. Every single transaction ever is part of the blockchain record. Cryptocurrency is a terrible way to make a clandestine purchase.
- All currencies are made up (I know, real imfourteenandthisisdeep energy, but still technicallythetruth).
*Edit - A silly caveat to this is that if the US government starts regularly transacting in Bitcoin, it would be very easy to audit... using blockchain means there's a built-in transaction record... anybody with a little bit of experience in reading the ledger could just track everything.
Other than that you're absolutely right.
- Cryptocurrencies are still largely unregulated, and the crypto market has attracted exactly the kind of people you would expect to be most interested in unregulated financial transactions - scammers, thieves, con men, ransomware gangs, money launderers, and anyone who wants buy or sell CSAM, narcotics, weapons, DDOS-as-a-Service, and North Korea's government funding crew. The crypto market is absolutely chock-full of criminal activity, so it's entirely reasonable to assume that anyone who wants to participate in that market wants to participate in the crime.
- As you said, trading physical gold for digital currency is a stupid idea. It's also uneccessary, because the FBI is already sitting on a collection of cryptocurrencies that have been confiscated through criminal investigations, including large amounts of Bitcoin. It is technically illegal right now for the US government to do anything with that, but that could be changed with a law. There's nowhere else for that cryptocurrency to go anyway.
It seems likely to me that a play to distribute gold from the reserve is about having an excuse to open it and take gold out, and disappear some of it in the process. It's a cover for a plan to rob the US.
danuntraceable
Literally every transaction is stored in a public ledger that anyone can read. That's not exactly untraceable. Eventually someone will convert the Bitcoin to regular currency, which then links the transaction chain to the real world. Transactions can be clustered based on accounts at exchanges, and often patterns emerge once you do this. This is how some ransomware groups are uncovered.
RepleteLocumEveryone here is forgetting xmr.
I know very little about crypto other than the theory behind it. What does XMR do differently?
It’s private as in it doesn’t trace, who sent how much to whom. It’s also really stable, but I’m not too sure how they do that.
If your problem with Bitcoin is that it's a made up currency then I have vers bad news about gold for you.
And all other currencies.
That plan is ludicrous for a lot of reasons but you chose to mention the only two that are not it
limited resource
Gold can be created in supernovae and then found in asteroids.
There will only be 21 million bitcoins ever.
Who is going to fund the network security when the block reward is only 0.01 BTC?
The purchasing power of a block reward used to be a lot lower than that!
So Trump wanted to get the gold from fort Knox so he could hand it over to Chinese hackers?
talWhat Happened: Bo Hines, the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, suggested in an interview that the U.S. could capitalize on the gains from its gold holdings to purchase more Bitcoin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Hines
Robert "Bo" Hines (born August 29, 1995) is an American former college football player from North Carolina. He played college football for the NC State Wolfpack and Yale Bulldogs. In 2022, he was the Republican nominee in North Carolina's 13th congressional district.
Call me a traditionalist, but it seems to me that if you're going to be advising the President on digital assets, it'd be nice to have an economics background.
Call me a traditionalist, but it seems to me that if you're going to be advising the President on digital assets, it'd be nice to have an economics background.
None of the rest of Trump's cabinet have any qualifications, so why should this guy?
Just to add, he is a lawyer. He did politics to law pipeline. And yeah there's typically no economic requirement to that like there would be with other political science paths.
Mr. Art of the deal-do is robbing you blind. No matter how this ends, he and felon will have stashed piles of you cash
MubelotixThe only real question is whether he is doing this to enrich himself, or because Putin told him to do it.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA Genius.
Step 1: Buy Shitcoin with actual gold (the most stable wealth storage)
Step 2: Bitcoin price rises
Step 3: Sell all your bitcoin, rugpull the entire thing
Result: You have now robbed Fort Knox. Legally.
Well there it is. For anyone who believed that they were simply going to create a reserve to store already existing cryptocurrencies - that were confiscated by the federal agencies - and not spend federal dollars to bolster or hype up cryptocurrencies that are connected to the people in the administration, y'all are idiots.
I mean even that original plan would be fairly stupid. Law enforcement agencies seem to operate just fine with the current reserve of forfeited cryptocoins - I didn't read anywhere of the FBI/CIA/etc crying out for a central bank style 'strategic reserve' managed by the FRB to add more layers of bureaucracy.
The only place I can find in news cycles saying it's a great idea is a think tank entitled the Bitcoin Policy Institute who put out a report in late 2024 entitled "The case for Bitcoin as a reserve asset". Plus all the usual crypto bros begging for it to pump their positions. Gosh, I wonder if these parties may be biased.
This reality is so fucking stupid. Let's sell something of value to buy something that is only valuable if someone really wants it bad enough.
To be fair, gold is the same. It's just more well established since it's been around much longer.
Not defending this shit, just pointing out that gold is also only worth what people are willing to pay for it. That's kind of how all markets work.
The difference is gold has carried high monetary value among human societies for nearly 3000 years while Bitcoin is a non tangible digital asset that's existed for less than two decades and remains incredibly volatile.
This comes across as another Trump scam. He's going to bankrupt the American government by siphoning public money to himself and other private entities and the American people are going to be stuck hodling the bag.
WahotsThat, and gold actually has properties that make it useful, like not oxidizing and being a good conductor. It still has value even if it was otherwise worthless as a currency
If bitcoin was otherwise worthless as a currency, then it would still be useful for secure time stamps.
This comes across as another Trump scam.
I guarantee his family and "friends" already own a lot of BTC.
Gold works without energy. It doesnt oxidise or decay as other materials
Seriously when people say gold is worthless, what a joke. There is very little of it, as you mentioned it doesn't oxidize, it's the metal used in microchips. It ain't sea shells or tulip bulbs or Bitcoin, that's for sure.
I would agree for the case that we're truly in end times where nobody has anything and people fight over scraps of food, that gold might be worthless.
It's still your best bet for all other scenarios that don't involve you hiding in a cave and eating bugs.
Did I say it was worthless? It's worth whatever people are willing to pay for it for its industrial purposes. That's it.
Boomer Humor DoomergodIf I was starving gold would still be worthless to me, regardless of how it oxidizes.
With a bar of gold you can crush someone's skull in and steal their food. Try do that with Bitcoin.
If all society broke down and all currencies became worthless gold would still have value as it has intrinsic value due to its chemical properties. Bitcoin would be worth nothing
There are easier and cheaper means of exchange. Indigenous people all over the world had access to gold but used it for decoration and not trade.
Gold is pretty damn “cheap” to use as a currency it’s a softer metal with a lower melting point which allows it to be easily minted and then since its properties are somewhat unique it makes it harder to counterfeit without more complex technology. It is also rare enough that small bits of it can be used for currency so you don’t have to use something like the giant stone discs of yap. Some places used food for currency like rice or cocoa beans but those had too little value per unit of currency which made them annoying.
Relevant Homer Simpson:
Which is why they airlift bundles of cash when there’s a famine and not, you know, food.
Gold has value by itself, just look up it's applications in the semiconductor industry
Outside of money, PoW blockchains are useful for secure time stamps.
Why single out PoW? PoS also documents hashes immutably over time.
Because we're talking about value by itself, outside of money. So HashCash for emails is useful even if there's no money involved, but locking up a dozen Stanley Nickels doesn't cost anything.
Because then people would have to admit that bitcoin isn't crypto, and PoS consumes something like 99.9% less power than PoW.
Hey everybody, check out THIS metal, its all yellowy and pretty!
Scroll ResponsiblyAnd it never rusts
Step 1 - Break numerous laws to sell gold.
Step 2 - Sell gold to fellow cronies for cheap.
Step 3 - Use gold money to buy bitcoin to drive the price up.
Step 4 - Sell bitcoin when price is high.
Step 6 - Bitcoin crashes.
Step 7 - Profit for Trumpy and his cronies
Ah shoot I made the same comment without realizing that was already done. I'm glad there's more people immediately understanding the robbery in progress here.
Fuck bitcoin. Let's bring back the beanie-baby as a monetary standard.
I see your beanie babies and raise you Pogs
I've got some old Magic: The Gathering cards.
fossilesqueThey're pretty hot right now ngl. I'll take them (to play with) if you want. 😅
If we're going to use something physical, we should use meteoric rocks that can't be replicated on Earth.
RememberTheApollo_A purchase shortly followed by one of the biggest bitcoin and market crashes in modern times.
So they want to trade something that is almost always worth a lot for something that is sometimes worth a theoretical shitload or less than a loaf of bread, depending on the day?
Brilliant, very good. Nothing stupid will come of this I'm sure. /s
InternetCitizen2
circuitfarmerbudget neutral
What the actual fuck. If you trade gold for bitcoin, you no longer have the gold. Budget neutral my ass.
It’s about at this point where I stop being snarky and stare in fascination
IHeartBadCodeNow my heart is doubtful. The world changes, and all that once was strong now proves unsure. How shall any tower withstand such numbers and such reckless hate?
A_norny_mousse
M0oP0oJust when you think the clown car is full, that there is no way they will get another clown in there, clown world manages to cram another in.
Again.
52fighters
cheeseburger
_haha_oh_wow_
ZierSo then, hypothetically, if they do this and we get hit with an EMP or a huge solar flare we will literally have nothing? I know it's a little "tin foil hat" on my part, but I like to live by the rule of not putting all your eggs in one basket. I know this is an excuse for them to do a whole bunch of shady shit and destroy shit from the inside, but a random Internet stranger shouldn't have a better grasp of national security than the president. Like, if this doesn't set off red flags for you, you are either incredibly stupid or you think this will pay you out in some way. (Spoiler: it won't)
Even my 70 year old mom knows this is a stupid idea and she doesn't even know how to reset a router.
If they actually know what they're doing, then they can secure against EMP very easily.
But they won't know what they're doing.
doesnt have to be an emp or solar flare. one malicious actor getting access to the wallets is all it takes and far more likely in my view
To be honest you can run the bitcoin only with paper and dedication. The algorithm could have existed 2000 years ago
SibshopsRecently pardoned Dread Pirate Roberts will be appointed the head of the Department of Internet Currency Keeping.
He's the best at bitcoin.
Undoubtedly he'd resign or get scapegoated though, and truck will need to find and appoint a new DICK head.
You can be sure this is about enriching himself and his broligarchs.
Huh, right wing dipshits have been buying gold from hucksters for decades now. I'm assuming this sell off would devalue gold somewhat. It'll be weird seeing consequences of this if it happens.
Tempus FugitI hate that they even say this shit... Like I get this is just a blitz of information in the attempt to overwhelm us, but goddamn is it manufacturing anxiety. Wasn't it investing 101 that uncertainty is bad?
I hate that they even say this shit.
Me too. It's overwhhelming on the face of it, but now with the added bonus that they are provenly quite capable and willing to put such brainfarts into action.
Sometimes I think: "don't fall for it, the outrage is the point!" but then I think: "that just makes it easier for them to get away with it!"
I figured the owner class/military industrial complex pulling the levers would be most pissed about all of this and attempt something, but the market isn't super crazy and the only resistance is leftwing grassroots, which isn't neo-lib.
PetteriPanoTrump has already made it clear that he's a Russian asset. The only question that remains is if he doing their bidding knowingly.
How would he go about transferring wealth to Putin & pals? He can't do business with them, because sanctions.
Russia already owns 12% of the world's crypto.
Trump can inflate their value by pulling shit like this.
Russia: profit.
There is speculation that a secondary goal here would be to weaken the US dollar as a defacto exchange currency standard worldwide if Bitcoin were to gain prominence.
That would be highly beneficial to certain "very good friends" of Trump like Putin whom would much prefer an unregulated currency that the US cannot impose controls over when presidents change.
Would it surprise you if the Russian state turned out to be Satoshi and holding on to all those early mined blocks?
It would very much surprise me if Satoshi turned out to be Russian (is that what you're asking?). His whitepaper proposal is written in very fluent English, as are his other communications on SourceForge etc, also Russians are not known for their technological entrepreneurial aspirations - at least not for the last ~40 years.
To be honest I would not be surprised if whoever Satoshi is has died, rather than craftily holding onto the early minted blocks. Only time will tell if they ever get transacted.
I wouldn't think it's one person. More like a state-funded project. I'm not really a conspiracy theorist, but it feels like russiayhas been playing some good 4D chess lately. Feels like the pieces are falling into place for a revelation like that.
It's not really speculation that they want to weaken the dollar and dethrone it as the world's reserve currency; it's in Project 2025. Stated goal is to transition the US back to a manufacturing-heavy economy, instead of service, tech, finance, etc. Probably won't work well, but that's what they're trying to do.
FingolfinzMake sure to tell a magat how much you hate them today for bringing this fucking bullshit upon us
Tony BarkI know this is old news, but how good would it be if they pissed a whole bunch of gold away on BitCoin and everyone dumped, tanking the price, and losing the US trillions of dollars.
I mean good from a theoretical way, it would be absolutely devastating for the state of the world.
they're going to buy bitcoin from russia, probably.
BlackmistThe North Koreans have quite a bit too.
Maybe Lil Kim is fencing it off like a crackhead with a bag full of loose PS4 games in Cash Converters.
Gotta give Russia the liquidity to exit its BTC positions if the war and sanctions will soon be over.
Fair FairyThe correct thing to do is ban all the digital coins.
All they used for is tax avoidance. While raising electric bills
HEXN3TAnd bar people who rely on anonymous payments for their HRT or psychedelic therapy?
Decent digital currency wouldnt use much electricity and would stop hyperinflation occuring in countries experiencing extreme issues. Being that taxes are standardly on income and sales, where is it you are saying they are dodging taxes? (Bitcoin isn't a good digital currency, but neither should a decent one be run by the country)
Which one is decent?
They all are based on ideas that it takes a lot of resources to produce it
Ether doesn't use power (or like, very much) and it's what a lot of other chains are based off of.
Ethereum is probably the most well-known of the ‘proof-of-stake’ cryptocurrencies, which don’t require massive resources in order to generate/validate transactions. It made the switch back in 2022 I think?
MyOpinion
Prior_IndustrySo personally, I think the government should have some, but I don't specifically think selling gold for it is the right idea.
Everyone seems to be on about how this is just about cashing out his buddies, but what I'm worried about is these dumbfucks won't know how to properly secure it or won't properly secure it and itll get easily stolen, or they'll outright steal it themselves.
Like they just used signal to talk about bombing Yemen and included a journalist on it...
So while I think it's not a bad idea to have some, it's fucking terrifying that Trump is doing this and can influence it.
How do you think they're going to transfer the money on a more mature coin? Oops, we lost the keys.
Oh look Putin and Thiel randomly managed to find the keys to America's Bitcoins.
Hey Putin,
We'll give you some more gold to get it back, say $0.75 on the dollar so you get a finders fee?
Putin - Sounds great!
two weeks later
Shit we lost them again, Thiel seems to have them this time, maybe he'll give them back to us for $0.75 on the dollar as well!
I don't think the government should have ANY, regardless of how the government purchased the fake assets. It's a fucking terrible idea for exactly the reason you described. The government should not be involved in such a high risk, unsecured, volatile, ridiculously easily stolen venture.
Agreed. Its also a direct competitor with every countries sovereign currency... So why would help it?
When there's a disruptive force, you have a few options
try to kill it so it can't disrupt
do nothing and be disrupted
dip you toes in, so if disruption happens you aren't blindsided and can hopefully wade through it
take a chance and swim in it so you can be on the leading edge of that disruption.
They've kinda tried option 1 but failed.
Option 2 could lead to long term consequences
Option 3 leaves them prepared but not overly exposed
Option 4 would be pretty risky
So really, option 3 is probably the best bet given option 1 hasn't been working.
It's bitcoin, the only thing it's disrupting is the pyramid scheme space. It's too volatile, too expensive(transaction fees), and too slow to be a useful currency. There is no reason for the government to buy in to a speculation bubble.
I'm not going to try and convince you on the merits of crypto, but it can be secured so it isn't "ridiculously easily stolen"
I just don't think Trump would do it.
Edit: Just to give an example - you could make it so you can't use the money without 100% of congress (house and senate) and the president authorizing it. It would be so secure, you'd probably never be able to use it ever again.
Why should they have any?
Why does any government invest time or money into new and evolving things. To stay up to date, be ready for change, and see how that new change can be of benefit.
Bitcoin isn't new. It's almost 30 years old at this point. You don't need to purchase any substantial amount of BTC to understand how it works. One can simply read the research papers and understand crypto (or pay people smart enough to do so). Also laughably the US government already has billions of dollars in BTC because it holds the funds it seized from criminals.
We don't need to buy ANY.
iAvicennaDeleted by author
They don't. It's being floated. Trump said he's going to create a reserve. Not an official act yet.
Some real emperor's new clothes shit right here. At this point we should just put a slot machine on the flag
NASA might go rogue and take them for themselves. Not over their specialty helmet visors! Imagine if NASA did an oceans 11…..
Translation: They're going to steal all of the Fort Knox gold.
Nah, at that point you have the same problem that Bitcoin does. Well, one of the many problems that Bitcoin has. Okay it has another one of the many problems that Bitcoin has.
In any event, you can't realize that kind of gain without crashing the asset price and rendering it all worthless. I would like to repeat the proposed solution from Auric G. Et Al to instead detonate a dirty bomb inside of Fort Knox, possibly with an English misogynist handcuffed to it, which will allow us to instead reduce the global supply and earn significantly higher returns in appreciation of our existing holdings.
i think you underestimate the world gold market. If they were only selling the gold domestically i would agree but there really aren't very many americans and the rest of the world likes gold for many reasons.
Additionally these assholes dont need anywhere near 100% of the value they are selling stolen assets 75% is done, 50% is fine, it's all profit for them
It seems you have some familiarity with the gold trade. Tell me, have you seen those new laser cutters up close?
Here, enjoy an up close and personal viewing of them while I leave the room unguarded.
One week later, the entire oval Office will mysteriously be gold-plated
Trump’s new golden chair that is totally not a throne or anything, also his funny new golden hat that is absolutely not a crown!
Killed by a golden bullet, I hope.
I don't know that it holds enough of an edge for a golden guillotine, but it's dense and heavy enough that we could probably create a workable alternative if we give up on clean cuts.
Aw yeah time for the Great Libertarian Schism
We're seeing it in action right now, tonight in this very thread:
I guess maybe what if Fort Knox was glassed?
both 198Au and 199Au have half-life in order of 3d, waiting 1y will decrease radioactivity to nothing (5E40 times for 198Au and 1.3E35 times for 199Au. others are shorter-lived and fission products can be probably separated chemically to an acceptable degree). it's also pretty decent deterrent against stealing it, and decay product mercury is stable and easily separated. i'm not even sure if irradiating gold with neutrons would make it worthless because of that. might even go up in value because there's now a story behind it. bigger problem would be that it's scattered everywhere
Me dropping a radioactive gold bar on my foot: "Au!"
yeah, you better do
Godspeed, David.
Bitcoin is the new Brooklyn Bridge.
Imagine Bitcoin going to the Gold Standard.
I guess now is the best time to do one of those Ocean's Eleven heist and rob Fort Knox. Soon it's not going to be worth it anymore.
You're watching the Ocean's Eleven heist in real time.
Yeah, I don't think we will ever get to know the full extent to how much Trump and his oligarch cronies will eventually end up having pilfered from federal funds.
@Nikelui @dgerard I'm in.
It’s all to do with billionaires being able to hide their money so they can avoid taxes, escape the authorities, hide their fraud and embezzlement. It’s about taking the power away from other nations.
Aren't they selling gold certificates?
Fort Knox NFTs?
Do it, I dare them
It will speed up and severely deepen the collapse of the US dollar.
Between the tarrifs, the massive structural debt, and now grifting the public on crypto: the depression will be like nothing before.
The most stable currency in human history liquidated to buy the least stable, and it won’t even crack the top 10 dumbest ideas this week.
when did we get goldbugs here
bitcoin is more stupid, but goldbugging is not not stupid
🎶 Goldbugger / the man who will bugger gold / his prick is cold 🎶
Do you realize that putting your wealth into commodities and securities instead of a deliberately inflated currency is just basic money management?
And with "securities" not looking too hot right now, that leaves commodities.
(Also it's huge warning sign of a recession in general)
You probably felt really smart when wrtiting that comment, and that's totally normal and valid. Everyone has lapses in reading comprehension sometimes.
Uh huh. Why don't you explain for class what you think the conversation is?
Okay
daddprofessor. Most of us were agreeing that Trump admin trading gold reserves for cryptocoins is a stupid idea. This seems to have attracted people who agreed for the incorrect reason, namely that they think inert yellow metal is the fundamental source and measure of wealth, which David called out. After that it could be one of three things:a) You misunderstood what David wrote and rudely insinuated he is unfamiliar with the concept of speculative investment.
b) You correctly understood what David wrote and — being a goldbug yourself — took issue with it and proceeded to make the aforementioned rude insinuation.
c) You're flirting with me a bit too aggressively and it's activating my brat instincts, professor~
You're not intellectually ready for college, calm down.
1) No, I understand what double negatives are and addressed them correctly. You're giving "David," and I doubt very much you're personally familiar with him, credit where it isn't due.
2) Goldbugs are people who are unreasonably bullish on gold as a value store, just because it's gold.
I am pointing out that it is perfectly reasonable to invest in gold when your government is run by morons both actively attacking the value of the national currency and doing their best to cause a recession. Especially when those morons have a personal financial interest in doing so because all of their wealth is in commodities and securities while their debts are measured in USD.
not a currency, and only stable in the form of 197 Au
Meanwhile, all their bitcoin hidden billionaire money stockpile price goes up up up.
Sell gold for bitcoin, generate more interest in bitcoin, pull rug, buy gold.
I heard Tesla stock is a great buy!
North Korea supports the idea
Gold is real and generally increases in value. Bitcoin is nonsense with perceived value that makes it valuable until it is not. Quantum computing will break a lot of things. Including Bitcoin.
yay goldbugs
Beanie Babies are real and generally increase in value.