Bitcoin Is Becoming the World's Strategic Reserve Asset
President Trump signed the Executive Order establishing the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, and the market dumped on the news. Time for a reality check!
When I first learned about Bitcoin in 2014, I thought it was absolute nonsense—that it would implode at any moment! Oh, how wrong I was! In 2017, I started trading and holding some, but I was still terrified that my money would vanish.
Today, in 2025, none of those fears exist anymore! If you weren’t there, you have no idea what a monumental shift has been happening in Bitcoin lately.
Let’s start at the beginning
Bitcoin started as an idea, a response to the 2008 financial crisis. Something was wrong with our money and monetary system, and a genius known by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto proposed a new form of hard money: bitcoin.
The first block was mined on January 3, 2009, and the first Bitcoin software was released on January 9, 2009. The first transaction between Satoshi and Hal Finney was made on January 12, 2009, effectively launching Bitcoin.
Laszlo Hanyecz famously bought two pizzas for 10,000 BTC in 2010, marking the first real-world transaction. At today's price, that was one expensive pizza—884,000,000 USD. In the same year, Mt Gox, the first exchange, was created.
Think about this: In just 15 years, Bitcoin went from an obscure idea of some cyberpunk anonymous genius to a worldwide accepted currency and, today, a strategic reserve of the USA.
It wasn’t an easy journey
If you wanted to own, use, or even publicly endorse Bitcoin, you were going against the herd and would be labeled an idiot, scammer, or criminal.
2013 - Charlie Munger: "I think it’s rat poison."
2014 - Warren Buffett: "Stay away from it. It’s a mirage, basically."
2014 - Donald Trump (via advisors, later attributed): "Bitcoin seems like a scam."
2015 - Joseph Stiglitz: "Bitcoin ought to be outlawed. It doesn’t serve any socially useful function."
2016 - Jamie Dimon: "It’s worse than tulip bulbs. It won’t end well."
2017 - Howard Marks: "In my view, digital currencies are nothing but an unfounded fad."
2017 - Prince Alwaleed bin Talal: "Bitcoin will implode one day. It’s just a fraud."
2017 - Nouriel Roubini: "Bitcoin is a giant speculative bubble."
2018 - Agustín Carstens: "Bitcoin is a combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme, and an environmental disaster."
2018 - Bill Harris: "Bitcoin is a scam, a colossal pump-and-dump scheme."
2018 - Robert Shiller: "Bitcoin looks like a bubble to me… It’s a story of speculative excess."
2019 - Steve Mnuchin: "Bitcoin is used for illicit activities, and I’m not comfortable with it."
2019 - Kevin O’Leary: "Bitcoin is garbage because you can’t get in and out of it in any real volume."
2020 - Peter Schiff: "Bitcoin has no real value and will eventually crash to zero."
2020 - David Rosenberg: "Bitcoin is a massive bubble waiting to burst."
2021 - Christine Lagarde: "Bitcoin has conducted some funny business and some totally reprehensible money laundering activity."
2021 - Charlie Munger: "I hate the Bitcoin success… It’s disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization."
2022 - Warren Buffett: "If you offered me all the Bitcoin in the world for $25, I wouldn’t take it."
2023 - John Reed Stark: "Bitcoin is a tool for fraudsters and a haven for illicit finance."
2024 - Janet Yellen: "Bitcoin is an extremely inefficient way of conducting transactions, and the amount of energy consumed is staggering."
Not to mention all the hacks, exchange calamities, and lost computers with fortunes on them. Holding bitcoin was never easy as uncertainty, required technical knowledge, and price volatility constantly tested the “hodlers.”
Buying, holding, and endorsing bitcoin in 2025 is on another level
There are millions of ways and places to buy and sell bitcoin worldwide. You have exchanges, ATMs, apps on your phone, and even ETFs, where institutional buyers can purchase bitcoin.
Yesterday, it was only for the bold risk takers with a dream!
Today, buying bitcoin is easy. Using less so, but you can still spend your bitcoin in millions of places, and with some credit card magic, everywhere.
You’re no longer a weird criminal geek person if you hold bitcoin.
At first, only tech bros and entrepreneurs invested in Bitcoin.
Today, half the US cabinet, including the president, vice president, and most ministers, own Bitcoin.
We’ve come a long way, my friends!
Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile
President Trump signed an executive order establishing the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and the U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile.
While it’s not about just buying bitcoin every day, like El Salvador, it’s still a gigantic move forward legitimizing our industry beyond any doubt.
A link to David Sacks (US Crypto and AI tzar) statement explaining it: https://x.com/davidsacks47/status/1897802280738734236.
Key points:
The Reserve will be capitalized with Bitcoin owned by the federal government that was forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings.
The U.S. will not sell any bitcoin deposited into the Reserve. It will be kept as a store of value.
The Secretaries of Treasury and Commerce are authorized to develop budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin, provided that those strategies have no incremental costs on American taxpayers.
IN ADDITION, the Executive Order establishes a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, consisting of digital assets other than bitcoin forfeited in criminal or civil proceedings.
The government will not acquire additional assets for the Stockpile beyond those obtained through forfeiture proceedings.
An important point we don’t like, but normie voters probably do: “This means it will not cost taxpayers a dime.” With this government cutting expenses everywhere, it would be political suicide to announce buying bitcoin. However, it is a foot in the door.
Meanwhile, many US states are also voting on establishing their own Bitcoin Strategic Reserves. This movement has only one direction and will not stop.
Except for Europe with our idiotic leaders, who live in the previous century and get off on regulating everything they can get their hands on. With that attitude, it’s no wonder the world is leaving Europe behind!
Unrealistic and idealistic expectations
I know bitcoin holders and crypto gamblers expected Trump to announce that the US would start buying their bags en masse, but that was always a pipe dream - it was unrealistic.
The USA has always been a leader, and it is about time to man up and take charge of the digital economy. More should follow their lead, as they have just legitimized using bitcoin at the highest levels.
While, far from perfect, this particular administration is making incredible steps forward, with a touch of scammy scams to fill their pockets along the way.
Would I prefer that they pursue a Bitcoin-only strategy? Hell yeah!
Would I prefer if they didn’t manipulate markets like rabid dogs? Also yes!
But since they can’t directly make money that way, politicians will use altcoins to make themselves rich, which is sort of their only purpose anyway. It’s just the way of the world.
Anyway, I just wanted to remind everyone that today is a great day! Even if it’s not pump-my-bags day. Bitcoin train is not stopping. A million dollars per coin is coming, whether you like it, or not!
Choo-choo, all aboard!
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