Bitcoin Forum

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2022/11/22/harvard-paper-to-central-banks-buy-bitcoin-00070552

Alike with the idea of centralization? that won't be as easy as that. If ever governments are about to buy Bitcoin, then they would be investors, which makes it impossible. Their only goal is to tax transactions which are more likely through third party wallets, apps, or even exchangers. Governments who'd buy cryptocurrencies will be in huge loss and the point of doing so is just weird. Unstable market value, decentralized nature; being untaxable if by direct transactions,; which are characteristics they won't like, I guess. To countries wherein cryptocurrencies are being widely used, they did not need doing such thing to adapt this technology.

I think governments would buy Bitcoin for the same reasons they hoard gold. While they cannot control the network, they can manipulate the price if they buy massive amounts of Bitcoin and then sell it. While those of us who HODL and believe in Bitcoin as a means of freedom will be undeterred, it can cause panic and make a CBDC look appealing to those who don’t understand what Bitcoin really is.

Banks and governments buying BTC may never be a world wide thing, there may be some governments that would hoard BTC for their own reasons we may never know of, but that number will be very small and of little importance. Think of it, with the problem of inflation and other critical economic problems plaguing many nations, most of them living in poverty and can't provide anything for their citizens, buying BTC should almost be off the cards for them.

That thing also in my mind that govt and banks only way to control bitcoin is to buy as much as they can. That is the only way to control by holding bitcoin.

I don't know about the government but I believe some government officials and banks have already bought Bitcoin before now and don't tell me you're still among the set of people who still believe in the political game played by the government. In addition to that, Michael Saylor once make a tweet which I searched for half an hour but couldn't find he says " he went to a certain US bank some years ago if they can sell BTC to them and they said they don't do it but the same bank that said they don't do it now asking him if they ^{(MicroStrategy)} would like to buy BTC".

Banks and governments are already buying Bitcoin but not at a scale yet where people are squeezed out and unable to do so.  Chase and a few other banks allow clients to purchase/invest in Bitcoin and El Salvador has already made a few purchases.

Yes, we are witnessing a similar trend to the early days of the internet. The point is that there is a lot of chatter about Bitcoin and its ability to fundamentally change the way we view money. This coupled with the huge amount of money pouring into Bitcoin startups speaks volumes about its future prospects.

I think many countries and banks are constantly buying Bitcoin. Only El Salvador and a few big companies say so openly. Of course, they don't have to say this, but Bitcoin's future and goals are attracting many investors. Governments and banks are also investors for Bitcoin. I think the number of these investors is not small at all. Especially in bull periods, states that see the potential cannot remain indifferent to Bitcoin. I am aware that these investments can bring many problems. I know that the number of countries that can ignore Bitcoin today will decrease day by day.

ok lets give you guys some food for thought

ok lets imagine all citizens(households) bak balances totald $5trillion
(google stats of 122m households savings of 41k)

now imagine that %5trill is the amoutnincluding the super rich, whare as the 88% of households are low income with only a mean bank saving of $5.1k

i say thins becasue the FDIC insurance that protects bank account holders does not protect every penny. just an amount below a certain threshold.

so this mean amount of $5.1k would if it was expressed over all households only be $630bill that is most likely in a FDIC reserve(number on computer ready to generate should all banks go bust)

here is the thing. do not confuse commercial banks with government
commercial banks manage $5trill while the FDIC has a pledge to honour $6.26b to over majority of households

now here is the thing. if all banks did go bust.
and FDIC were to set up its own new nationalised bank for households to register with. and it sent out the FDIC cheques to everyone to then deposit into the "new bank"
the us economy of circulating money went from $5trill to 0.64trill.

this if you take a step back.. is the government having a deflationary token because if the economy has less supply. its deflationary where the coin to goods swap rate means people have to only share 0.6t instead of 5t. thus . the government already has their deflationary asset to hedge against the commercial banks fiat.

they dont need anything outside of their system

the reason why politicians decided not to pull the FDIC grenade in 2008 and instead do QE to increase money supply.. = more fiat to plough into banks while putting the debt of QE onto the treasury balance sheet (citizens tax burdens of the future)

is because by doing so would see a 88% drop in GDP meaning US loses its top spot as a economic super power.. and that politically is suicide

they dont want to use deflationary assets. as thats the way they shrink the GDP. inflation is what they like

Currently most nations especially in developing nation are sustaining their economy by through borrowing. The global economic crisis have made most government to focus on how to run their nation and investing in cryptocurrencies would be a minor option. Also, the volatility of bitcoin would discourage most ignorant government from investing in bitcoin. Most government official have little or no knowledge about the operations and opportunities of bitcoin investment.

Another major challenge that would discourage most nations from investing in bitcoin in the developing world especially Africa is colonial influence. Most nations in Africa depend financially on the World Bank and their colonial masters. They must consult these financial institutions before they make any investment, failure to do that might lead to severe financial consequences. So most nations are scared that they might not access more loans or receive a loan payment adjustment. Countries like El Salvador and Central African Republic boldly adopted bitcoin regardless of the pressures and opposition of most global financial organization.

As long as they cannot control bitcoin, it would not be a bad idea if banks and government of nations invest in bitcoin. It would affect the price positively and it could also lead to massive adoption of bitcoin in those nations.     

Will countries really buy Bitcoin at this time and condition, the answer is No: simply because the volatility c of the cryptocurrency market have made Bitcoin unattractive for government.

The highest any government will do right now is to tax cryptocurrency transaction within their country's, due to the global economics crisis a lot countries are looking for mean to raise revenue and instead of looking into investment their looking to borrow to service their recurrent expenditure.

Also Bitcoin is decentralized and at that most countries will see it as a threat to their economy since they can't control Bitcoin, because of that, the countries will rather develop their own CBDC which will be centralized and controlled by them.

There is no way that they will buy bitcoin. We all know that banks and btc are not friends. They won't even allow their customers to interact with it but I just realized that there are some governments already who bought btc. El salvador for example. Okay, so we can add some exceptions but what happens when we are late to buy a btc? Do you think there will be some manipulations that will come?

But, manipulations are already been there even before though it wasn't heavy. There is no way manipulators can purchase all the remaining supply of btc as it can cost them a lot of money. Plus I don't think that many people will sell their btc's easily.

Governments do not really need to buy bitcoin as they can always confiscate it as we have seen in the past, but instead of deciding to sell it as they did back then, or at least that is what we were told, they can just keep it, however the risk that you mention is real, they managed to control gold in this way and it is likely they may try to same tactic against bitcoin as well, however even if private investors hold most of the bitcoin in circulation once the governments decide to accumulate bitcoin through confiscation and taxes then at some point they will become major holders whether we like it or not.

In fact, there are governements that have been holding seized bitcoin. There's still a way for them to manipulate the market just as the whales do.

When they wholly stepped in to the bitcoin market, they'll just have to play by the book of supply and demand and that's it. You're right, they may not have the control to the network but for the market, they will have and they will be able.

Immediately one have a taste to how sweet a decentralized network could be of importance to life in general then one will begin to make sure in avoid anything that has to do with central authorities, now to sum it up, it will not be as easy as expected when the time comes whereby the banks and government would have also supported bitcoin and buy it, adopt and even encourage others to invest and use bitcoin, but till then we wouldn't conclude on how feasible this could be now nit until governments begin to massively adopt bitcoin.

El Salvador's government is already accumulating one Bitcoin per day. Though it does not reflect the Bitcoin chart, if more governments do the same, Bitcoin will skyrocket. So I agree with the OP, we may accumulate when it's cheap. It would be difficult to accumulate when a few more governments and banks decided to accumulate.

I think they aren't. They had some exposure in 2020 and 2021 but most institutions left the market when we crashed to 30k. I saw some analysis by glassnode early this year and they were showing that institutional outflow was in November 2021 and then again early 2022.
The rest of the crash were mostly scammers who used bitcoin like Do Kwon who dumped 2 billion on the market. I suspect some of the crash was also SBF who was selling coins people were depositing on his exchange to buy himself houses and bribe politicians.

IMO the attempt to destroy bitcoin through FTX was made so that the banks could go towards CBDCs instead of buying existing cryptocurrencies. They are playing their own game.

I feel banks were going to cozy up to CBDCs whether crypto were to boom or bust.  As for we the people that are Bitcoiners, I don't see such a thing as we already know that CBDCs is nothing but fiat 2.0- dressed different but the same shit, i.e., inflationary, devalues over time, etc.

Government can't buy cryptocurrency and Bitcoin for investment or holding it for long time, the only people in the government can do is what you just said, because government dislike cryptocurrency because of  the heads of the government are thinking that while Bitcoin is like that, it's because of they thought over Bitcoin is that Bitcoin is a currency that will make fiat currency to be valueless,and that's why government is against Bitcoin totally.

Bitcoin is a very volatile asset which I don't think the CBN would easily want to dive in because especially during this uncertain period of the market because they will really be in huge loss just as El Salvador is now.
Everyone wants to Make more Money even the government and it's central banks too will also love to dive into Bitcoin but the fear if the unknown still holds them.
I've come to observe and also notice that government will prefer to invest more in gold which is stable than a highly volatile Bitcoin and from the news link the OP shared, more gold have been bought in the third quarter if the year and from where no one actually knows.

If the government would want to purchase Bitcoin then it would be through some investors because they wouldn't want to bear the risk.

Let's not get overexcited especially with the many bad things happening in the cryptocurrency industry. I am sure that there can be some banks - maybe under a subsidiary they partly or fully control - that are owning Bitcoin but I am not sure any bank that is planning now to be getting into Bitcoin. Banks can have a hard time managing the risks with extreme volatility...they prefer something that is stable and sure. Now, I always prefer that it would be the people that will be the leading investing force for Bitcoin though sad to say that retail investors can easily be swayed by FUDs so they can panic easily.

Dude, I don't agree with this view. But I respect it.

Governments and politicians are trying to advertise and market bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as worthless and dysfunctional assets.

First, they drop as much as they can and then they start a bullish movement. We've seen this with every bitcoin rise.

Personally, I think they will drop Bitcoin as low as 10 thousand dollars and spread serious fear. Then they will start to take it themselves. We follow a cycle.

I think overexcited when talking about bank and government buy or investing in Bitcoin based on there man countries not allowed for using Bitcoin as legal currency transaction. No doubt with Bitcoin worth as investment assets at future, but I think have competitor when many countries have legalize with Bitcoin as payment currency and make it for investment assets,  I worried with government have change any rule about Bitcoin is legal for investing assets or not.

Need to see later have many countries have adopted bitcoin as legal currency and make them interested invest their assets in Bitcoin, but have little impact with taxes accepted by government reduce with many people have controlling by their self when investing in Bitcoin and there are no one know about how much Bitcoin investment we have.

Old fashined governments are still struggling with the idea and what Bitcoin represents. For them, it threatens their stability and control and their monetary policy. So, if they want to keep their control, they will either buy into it or they will severely restrict it by creating heavy regulation specifically designed to prevent the average joe to buy it.

Maybe later, there will be negative news that will scare investors and sell their bitcoins out of panic and make the price fall deeper.
And some people will benefit from that because they can buy a lot of bitcoins with a lot of money.
Maybe the government will also use the moment to buy more bitcoins with their cash reserves, we know they can buy them easily.
As crypto users and using bitcoin as an investment, we should use those moments as an opportunity to increase the number of bitcoins we have and better keep up with market conditions.

Yes Banks and Government actually sees Bitcoin as a threat, Government sees that it will be difficult for them to control and that's why they came up with the idea of CBDC'S. While most banks will go out of business if Bitcoin becomes widely adopted and if those banks didn't change their old business model because of the peanut called interest they pay their customers for saving money in their account as compared to what people get as interest in staking their cryptos/stablecoins.

The article mentions a paper which wasn't even peer-reviewed and that argues that gold is better for banks to avoid sanctions anyway. So it seems that the motivation to have some BTC for central banks isn't high. Moreover, sanctions, as the Politico article mentions as well, don't always work and might not work as effectively as intended most of the time.
The Satoshi quote by the op is beautiful, but the idea of buying BTC before the banks do it isn't really viable, as it's not like we can ban them from buying it, and given high liquidity of Bitcoin, there wll always be enough willing to sell (and thus enough options for banks to buy BTC), it's just a question of price.

when I see this title I always look at the banks in my country and the first thing that comes to my mind: "no, no, no... the banks in my country do not buy bitcoin" and the reason is very simple, the banks in my country for example they want almost safe profits, something they say: "in a few years we will have 3X profit" so they will prefer to continue giving loans to people in my country and charge high interest and after 5 years they will have high profits than buy bitcoin that will not have a 100% guarantee that after 5 years they will have a profit of 3X, I gave an example of the banks in my country, but probably the banks in other corners of the world are worse than the banks in my country


banks are constantly monitored by central banks and the central bank is very strict in complying with laws, banks will not risk losing their license, paying high amounts in fines and even being arrested for taking money from customers to buy bitcoin, they will not that. things in the real world work that way, there are laws and people can easily be arrested if they commit this type of crime of taking money from customers and buying bitcoin when the central bank does not allow them to do that. I don't know how some people can still be fooled into thinking that banks will buy a lot of bitcoins

Although it's known that Central African Republic and El Salvador already got their ways into bitcoin and they could be using funds of their people in buying bitcoin.

But the majority of the governments wouldn't really try to get into a very volatile market without assurance that they'll have ROI or profit to make. They just can't put at risk the money of their people so, there's no need to be wary of if they will buy.

There's always a game plan if government gets involved in Crypto currency purchase or ownership. The government can not be trusted to this extent of buying Bitcoin without something in their minds. Most times, government getting involved in things of this nature points towards their selfish interest. I laugh when I hear news of this type because it's only a man that folds his sleeves knows what he is upto. So therefore it should not be a thing of surprise if you wake up one morning and start hearing that the government of your nation has suddenly pick interest in blockchain. They always have a way to truncate situations. A

Banks won't disappear even if bitcoin is widely accepted, bitcoin is just a currency, a store of assets, or more an investment. Banks will be weak to bitcoin in those cases but banks give us more services than you think, lending services with moderate interest rates is one of the strengths for the bank to survive for hundreds of years without having to change its business model. When you need money and no one wants to help you and bitcoin won't be able to help you in that case but with the bank it can help you.

Governments will not buy bitcoin as their reserves or assets unless they have no other means of doing payment like hyperinflation or restrictions for accepting Rubles.

Banks may buy it and has to do it if they want to follow the trend or else they will be left out what happened to Nokia when smartphone era begins. So yes buy as much as you can and you won't regret that for sure.

Are you sure about your words as far according to the current market situations there is no body who is buying Bitcoins and this is called a dead market flow. So how can you say that Banks do follow it. But considering the advice everyone must fill up bags as its good to be prepared. Now or later banks need to buy so if they are not buying cheap you do buy and then sell them in major profit margins to same banks.

Even if the Banks bought all Bitcoin, what would be the purpose of that? To control/centralize Bitcoin? In that case, we would just move over to a different coin with the same Blockchain technology but with just a different name. That does not sound like a good strategy for banks, especially since they want to earn profits, not just hold everyones money and charge them for such stupid reasons. They want to earn money by doing nothing but making it seem like they did something of use, like provided a service which people actually need...

I believe that the banks and governments already have enough bitcoin and are waiting for it to rise in price, El Salvador took the step that everyone wants but it was shameless and that did not sit very well with the banks and the other governments, the governments they already have bitcoin and the banks must have their refuge in bitcoin, it is the case that the most important countries in the world have economic problems and have to save their money in case there is more inflation, that the United States of America of a news that is their economy may come crashing down to activate all the plans they have had for many years, the gringos are not stupid at all.

Going through the link as provided above, I find something interesting and that's is
This is the evil that the banks are built on, the flaw in a centralized system that prompts users to seek bitcoin or cryptocurrency investment as that is a wie thing to do in times of complete control by the government. Its horrible what centralized systems puts those who bank ok the system through.

Violation of trust and trying to get money of people money without there consent is how FTX crumbled, a centralized exchange and that's the very things banks have always banked on. What do you think would become of it should things go rogue one day.

Little wonder why other banks buy all the shared of others.
In all, though banks and nations that fear foreign influence might sort bitcoin for refuge, they can't buy it out of the market, they might end up making it more scares and even worth more.

If Government would by btc they would have done so long ago, not now that the price is high (even though money is not an issue in their case) their action will only inflate the price, what will they gain by increasing the price only to manipulate it?
Between if you are referring to government in the whole world, don't forget btc only has 21 million and not all in circulation yet, and imagine government from all over the world decide to buy btc!  :o

I feel like it wasn't really a way to stop, but more like a way to control the flow and that is even better if you ask me. At the end of the day, what is better for governments, to control something and have their fingers on the pulse? Or to completely ban something and try to chase everyone who doesn't follow their law?

We have seen this with weed, they tried to stop it, and we saw how they failed after spending tens of billions of dollars. So, it is a lot easier to take control of it, people will use crypto anyway and you can't stop them. They basically said "might as well jump in on the fun" and decided to participate and be in the middle, instead of looking from outside.

Interesting article, I haven't see it before, thanks for positing it here. It sounds a bit unrealistic at moment for central banks to start buying bitcoins, but it would be a great success story for  the crypto community. For Russia it seems that cryptos are one way to get around the sanctions on international money transfers, this will make it more interesting for other governments to also go into cryptos. Especially for countries which are in rivalry or competition with the Western world cryptos can be a real alternative to get out of the Swift payment system. For central banks in Western countries it might be less attractive to start buying bitcoin themselves. The FED and the ECB are both trying to boost their own digital currencies. If word would get out that they start buying bitcoins in large quantities than it will be much harder to convince investors to start using the digital dollar or euro. I think western central banks would like to reduce the dominance of Bitcoins and buying coins would be the exact opposite.

Don't know about the governments but institutions and big investors/whales are already accumulating bitcoins. Most of these investors will not declare that they have bitcoins in their portfolio. Who knows governments of countries like China, who publicly discourage the use of bitcoin, may be accumulating bitcoins too.

For people like us, low prices like 16,000$ or 17,000$ is a good price to buy bitcoins. We do not know the exact bottom of this bear market, but we should keep on doing the dollar cost average and keep investing in this phase.

Have you ever come to think that is possible for them to do so, irrespective that their main aim is tax and have full control over the CEX, monitor transaction and have full control over cryptocurrency?
Yes this is very certain that even government official would definitely buy bitcoin but one thing you should note is that they won't come to air to announced about their purchased of bitcoin rather, they would secretly buy and hold expecting to make some decent profit from it.
When we talks about Government who are they? These are sets of people or group persons set to govern a particular country, state and communities even a region. Naturally individual from the body can arose to acquire bitcoin without the entire body or system knowing about them so it's very possible.

That's where the bank's shortcoming is, actually it's not the bank's fault entirely, but it's the people who work at the bank who must be educated, because they run the system and they manage everything.
so actually what needs to be fixed is the bank employee and the bank owner.
because the bank's vision and mission are very good, but many violate these rules, so the bank's name is tarnished unfavorably.

One thing about bitcoin is that it can be owned anonymously that is to say, government might own bitcoin, individual may own it and institution also might buy bitcoin without your knowledge. That is why I don't take the Fight of government against bitcoin so seriously they might be fighting before the media but behind the scene they are buying bitcoin seriously .

The only problem they have with bitcoin is that they cannot manipulate and /or influence it and that is why they are trying everything possible to centralise the usage of Bitcoin in order to censor some type of privacy that is embedded in Bitcoin

They already are buying. If institutions are already in crypto then banks are already accumulating for thier balance sheet. When JPM said they are hedging using BTC, it already signals everyone in the finance world that BTC will be a lot useful for them.

Authorities are seizing BTC which means they consider it to have value also. They even auctioned it which Tim Draper got. Its damn sure banks and governments are already trying to get more BTC but discreetly unlike El Salvador.

I believe that has been going on for a long time, not just the beginning. Many people say that countries ban bitcoin and oppose it because they know nothing about it, but I think they know more about bitcoin than we know. On the one hand, they openly attack because they don't want many people to own it, on the other hand, they buy it silently because they know the potential of bitcoin cannot be ignored.

Whether it is a government or a bank, their end goal is the same as ours, which is profit, so they will not pass up a profitable opportunity like bitcoin. People who openly hate bitcoin are the people who buy bitcoin every day, IMO.

Yes it definitely happens, An investor will definitely hide that they hold some bitcoins for security and also avoid excess taxes.
We don't know how many bitcoins are held by each investor, it is clear that right now the total supply of bitcoins is starting to run low and we don't want to run out or be left behind buying bitcoins before the circulation is completely exhausted and the market returns to a bull run.
Even though it's only a small amount, we still have to start being consistent to continue making purchases. That way, it doesn't feel like in a short period of time we can collect and invest in bitcoin.

I believe governments are still quietly buying bitcoin, they just can't make it public, and with governments managing a centralized monetary system, they can't openly support a decentralized currency like bitcoin. But given what bitcoin will bring to the future, they've certainly seen it and they won't want to overlook it. I believe governments have been quietly accumulating bitcoin just like other valuable assets.

when talking about the government and the bank it will concern the many people who are in the government and the bank. Those who are members of it or can be called government officials or banks might buy some bitcoins and hold them secretly. they all definitely want to benefit because they see the great potential in bitcoin in the future. The strict government may blatantly reject bitcoin, but those unscrupulous will become part of the anonymous and unnoticed bitcoin investors.

How much percentage possibility about Government and Bank want to adopt or investing in Bitcoin? trough have been 8 years Bitcoin have been present in public investment still less interested from several countries and Bank for investing in cryptocurrency and Bitcoin. I don't said with Bank not excited for investing in Bitcoin but many regulation disallowed from some countries won't adopted Bitcoin as legal currency transaction and have competitive way choosing Bitcoin for saving money than used Bank.

Later will have another viewed about Bitcoin from illegal become legal currency transaction depending possibility getting taxes due huge transaction amount of Bitcoin in daily day, exactly when Bitcoin at bullish moment.

But we don’t hold assurance of that, as most of the government officials are greedy and would want to take advantage on every asset that gains highly valuable, and bitcoin is not an exception. So we should not be totally carried away when they say avoid bitcoin because it will only put us into misery and debt, because the truth is those big whales in the crypto market are actually the big officials in the government that have invested huge amount for their own satisfying profits.

Really governments buy? Or the people themselves who are active in such levels. I hope the people, and don't forget there are at most 21,000,000 (less) Bitcoin and 8,045,000,000 people in the world and more every day. Then add up the Bitcoin from Microstrategy and all the Exchanges and there are not many BTC left. A Russian president: "The Bretton Woods system will collapse. The euro and the dollar will fail“. In 3-5 years I would very much like to see it today, and what the money is worth and how Bitcoin stands.

Long back itself there is issue stating that banks have made confidential investment over bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. These investments could affect the decentralised functioning of the network. Already centralized bodies have made a big down turn as well as caused more negativity over the market and bitcoin. We need to be very careful in handling every market condition and accumulate as much possible to enjoy the best before the financial service providers does.

Countries where cryptocurrencies are legal must be government investors or investors.  Because if the government declares Bitcoin legal, it will accept this decentralized currency.  Because the government can get huge dividends from this if it invests at the right time.  Will face loss again.

Not only the government here but the government in almost every country in the world has bought some Bitcoin.  Because if Bitcoin is legalized in the country then the government can invest in Bitcoin publicly.  And if the decentralized currency Bitcoin is illegal in the country, the government invests secretly.  As bitcoin is illegal in our country but we as citizens are investing in bitcoin.  So I think people of all countries do this.

one day we will see that. currently, there are still many countries that have not legalized Bitcoin as a legal means of transaction. several countries legalize the ownership of Bitcoin as an asset. it shows the government knows the huge potential of full-blown Bitcoin adoption. now more and more the world market knows Bitcoin. either their response is positive or they see it as a threat. but in the future, this market will no longer be hindered by regulation.

I think this is something I also think, and I think you are not the first to comment on the forum, but with 19,246,875 Bitcoins mined, some millions of Bitcoins lost, and the holders that we have, I think that if that were the case, the influence they could have on the price would be less than with gold, although yes, they could influence.


I also think so. Without knowing for sure, Bitcoin purchases could have started.

Yes, there is no guarantee what they say is true, people being poor doesn't mean the government will be poor too, I have never seen a poor government, even if it is a default country. Don't believe what we see from them, they are human too, what we see from bitcoin, they will also see, the potential of bitcoin is impossible to hide.

I am not sure if the whales in the market are government officials, but I also believe that there are some governments that are banning their people from buying bitcoins, but they are still sneaking to own bitcoins. Bitcoin is a valuable asset like gold, so they won't ignore it. Also, it's anonymous, so we can't assume they won't buy it.