Bitcoin Forum

Do you think this will happen? A while back, someone online noted that they think Japan will be the first government to start hoarding BTC (the way nations hoard precious metals and oil). And that China would then buy up more than Japan, because China of course can't be outdone by Japan in anything other than porn and anime. And then other nations would jump in. So, we'd essentially have a scenario in which taxpayers--who have have never heard of BTC--are indirectly purchasing BTC until we hit a point when they have heard of BTC and are directly purchasing it. 

With a current market cap of about $10.5B, I don't think there is enough BTC for hording by govts to be worth while.
To the countries you mention $10.5B is not very much money.

For Comparison, The US currently owes China $1.3T.

As you know, most mining power is now in China and China miners essentially control the development of bitcoin.

I do not think Japanese government will spend tax payers' money to buy something which is kind of "controlled" by Chinese. On the other hand, Chinese government do not need to spent money on bitcoins... They can just setup more miners or even gain control of all the miners in China...

With the kind of culture that Japan have, they will stay away with acquiring or even recognizing Bitcoin to be a currency as Bitcoin is tainted or known more about negative write ups and issues such as scams and laundering and Japan doest like those tags to be associated with them or else we will hear a lot of harakiri news.

Right.  There are over 200 countries in the world--there just isn't nearly enough to go around at the current price.  And if individuals like granny & grampa don't give two shits about bitcoin, what would whole governments want with it?  Most countries don't even know how or if they're going to regulate it, much less start "hoarding it" like...whatever.  Might happen, but probably not.

Japan recognizes BTC as money.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/japan-officially-recognizes-bitcoin-and-digital-currencies-as-money

And BTC trading is really heating up in Japan at the highly-organized level one would expect of Japanese business.

It is impossible big countries like Japan and China will not just focus on bitcoin only. They may save some but they are dumb as to hoard big amounts that later on may turn to zero. Hoarding huge volumes of bitcoins is bad for bitcoins. If there will be no movement in bitcoin users will lose interest in bitcoins and focus on other currency. As country who have experts in economy at their hands they would not do such risky thing.

They won't hoard bitcoins until there is a safer way for bitcoins to be exchanged back into fiat.

it may happen in the future but i don't think it can happen with the current situation of the small market and the volatile price. there is not enough money in bitcoin for the government to start hoarding bitcoin now when compared to precious metals,... they are hoarding now.

I don't know if this will ever happen,  obviously it would be good if it did because price would go through the roof.  But i wouldn't like to be the guy that suggests it to whatever government he works for,  im sure any government would thibk your insane if you wanted to spend a percentage of the budget on magic Internet money.

I think that in the future it would be possible for government to hoard BTC especially China. Before that thing happens, I think there will be some bitcoin features that needs to be changed. The first thing that needs to be changed is the market cap to suffice all who want to enter bitcoin. The second thing that needs to be changed is that the confirmation time. It will need to be faster to be able to attract those big countries. The third and last thing that needs to be changed in it is the mining process. Well if there would be more miners in that time it would be profitable if it wouldn't be changed, then miners wouldn't earn profit with the difficulty it might have in the future.

There will not be any surprise if governments want to hoard big amounts of crypto currencies. Because I have heard governments are in the race to hoard gold to secure the lowest possible prices which is currently available. If their financial experts suggest to invest into bitcoin kind of things (by analyzing the similarity with gold), then definitely they will come forward to buy crypto currencies before other governments bump it to higher prices.

Japan is already promoting bitcoin to an extent where they have Vending Machines to buy Physical Bitcoins and related bitcoin products with,of course bitcoins.The following merchants are already paying taxes for their service so directly/indirectly government is making money of bitcoins but not bitcoins ,fiat that is.Government would never interfere in the Crypto Business,they would just impose heavy regulations on its use or in China's scenario,no regulations at all.Its a cold war.

they might hoard it, to have the monopoly and control the market, also charge some interest on deposit

it would be fiat centralization all over again

We will see this prolly the next years, mostly china & us(?) ,it is risky because they will turn some bitcoin owners to millioners but it is what the governments do right ? they make the rich richer & the poor poorer so...
Im sure anyhow that already governments are using bitcoin secretly because of his nice abilitys (annon etc) for under the table uses..well we havent heard something like that till now..but since the US politicians accepted bitcoin for donation in their campaigns .. isnt that much sci-fi scenario dont you think ??

^^ And you can pay your taxes w/ BTC in Utah.

I don’t think governments will start hoarding bitcoins or any other crypto currency (unless created by them) as of now since bitcoin market capital is to much lower than what these countries usually trade in a single deal. Bitcoin is still evolving and price is fluctuating on board and to be honest not every buddy is using it. If bitcoin price rises as compared to average price so far then corporate houses will start acquiring it. We are still far way from actual price of bitcoin and actual user base of crypto currency. I am assuming we will see sustainable growth after mid of 2017.

I don't think governments will hoard at present as it would seem far too risky for them, but I do believe banks and hedge funds will try to get some risk capital in there and bet on Bitcoin purely for speculative reasons and also for some control over the digital currency.

How do they wanna charge interest if I hold my coins in my own wallet?!
They can not force me to put my coins in a third party account.
And good luck finding out if I own any coins when I never bought them over an exchange but instead of via peer to peer deals.

it'll never happen. governments would sooner kill bitcoin than have to buy it themselves. and all they'd have to do to do that is murder the exchanges. that's enough to make it useless to most people.

Exactly. Unless the entire capitalization of the sphere greatly increases, any one single major government could 'buy out' the Bitcoin market. Hell, a few of the right major companies could do the job. This is one of the reasons why it wouldn't happen, as well as the fact it would be much cheaper and secure for said government to develop their own coin. To hell with all that anonymity and decentralization, from a national security standpoint.

this sounds more like a conspiracy theory and an scary one for that matter if it ever happens, which i hope not.

also i have to say i doubt if it ever happens because if it happens and it becomes clear that governments are hoarding bitcoin then bitcoin can no longer be decentralized and people will leave to another project. so that would be the death of that country's government.

I am not sure why a single entity hording BTC has to do with the decentralization of bitcoin.
Decentralization refers to who creates and values a currency, which would still be the Bitcoin community as a whole.
That is not to say that someone who owns a great deal of a currency cannot manipulate the market, but that happens with may currencies and commodities already today.


I just don't think the amount of FIAT money we are talking about would be of interest to any entity that has the resources to truly impact the market.
Since BTC is not controlled by a central entity there is not enough predictability to make it more appealing to other options that exist today.