Bitcoin Forum

Some governments (like El Salvador and Russia) are moving into bitcoin mining. If more nation-states accumulate BTC, what impact will this have on decentralization and price stability? Could this lead to geopolitical bitcoin wars?

There's no price stability in Bitcoin.

It will be more centralized and yeah there's a chance of geopolitical wars, US will confiscated any coins linked from Russia because they've sanctions Russia.

So there would be US and EU coins, also Russia and other countries hated by US coins.

Basically Whales are a person or group of people who hold Bitcoin in very large amounts, and of course whales can affect prices and liquidity. We know that some countries are already interested in accumulating Bitcoin and will even make it a National Reserve, and if they have succeeded in accumulating Bitcoin massively then there is a possibility that they will become Whales, and of course they can affect decentralization and especially for price increases or decreases, but as long as that has not happened then it is good for retailer, because it is clear that it is good news to invest in Bitcoin for now. Regarding geopolitical, I don't really know, but what is clear is that countries must have plans for their respective interests so that there is the possibility of geopolitical bitcoin wars as you said.

You missed Bhutan! Bhutan was probably the first ever nation to monetize their abundant hydro power using Bitcoin mining. They already hold close to 14000 bitcoins.

If governments keep on investing in Bitcoin mining, I don't see a price stability happening. That's the inherent structure of Bitcoin. The volatility is something that keeps the investors and traders in the market. However, there's a definite risk on decentralization. Right now, if you would like to purchase Bitcoin legally, first thing you need to do is KYC. The chances of getting Bitcoin anonymously is getting slimmer day by day. I foresee that, it will only be increasing and enforcement agencies will close down any places where anonymous Bitcoin transactions are happening.

Not sure about the geopolitical Bitcoin wars, but commoners like you and I, will have no place to stay anonymous.

Governments could become the biggest BTC whales if they start seeing it as a strategic reserve asset. Some countries already confiscate BTC, while others, like El Salvador, are actively accumulating it. BTC can be useful for bypassing sanctions and protecting against inflation. 

However, high volatility, regulatory risks, and the development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) may limit their interest. Some governments already hold BTC, but whether it will become a widespread reserve asset remains a question of time.

The government want to control Bitcoin like they do that with their fiat. If that lead to geopolitical Bitcoin wars, let them do that with other country while we can follow the price and take the advantage for us. If they are doing war price and impact to the price stability, that will be good for us because we can buy Bitcoin at a low price.

They do not want to see the lose so they will lift the price with their resources. So we don't have to put our head in a worry because there will be a way for us to use that moment for our benefit. We just need to be ready with anything and still focus with Bitcoin investment that we do now.

Do you have any evidence that the Russian government is investing in BTC mining? I find it hard to believe that the Russian government would invest in Bitcoin mining. The Russian government is currently "investing" in tanks, rockets, weapons and artillery shells. ;D
What impact could this have on the BTC price? It would most likely pump the price, but I find it highly unlikely that the big and developed countries would suddenly start mining Bitcoins.
Geopolitical Bitcoin wars? Are you kidding me? The countries would start wars over rare-earth minerals, oil, gas or water, but they won't start wars over the possession of Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.

I wouldn't say they care about the price itself that much, they care about BTC being a good alternative to the traditional ways though, that boggles them like anything else.

And they can't ban BTC nor annihilate it, so they try to use it to their full extent, adopting it  ;)

As far as I know, only El Salvador and Bhutan are mining bitcoin, not Russia.


Although there are many news about countries intending to invest in bitcoin and turn it into national reserves, but so far everything is still just an idea. No country is really serious about investing and holding bitcoin yet, so it's too early to think about its impact on decentralization and bitcoin price.

Right now, bitcoin is just a speculative asset, it's not like gold, oil or rare earths so the scenario of countries starting wars just to fight over it. In my opinion, this seems unrealistic and somewhat exaggerated.

Totally no wars over BTC  ;D
And I agree with you, most of the news regarding the reserves are just dust put on our eyes, even if it's bullish dust.

The vast majority of currencies are in the hands of ordinary people, the number of bitcoins held by nations is very, very small, to have control of the currencies they have to buy from you, from me, from all ordinary people... mining is the same thing, to have total control you need a lot, a lot of money... and even the governments themselves would not be interested in the currency being centralized, that would end one of the great foundations of bitcoin.

If governments start Bitcoin mining and run Bitcoin nodes, then Bitcoin will be more geographically distributed and that's a good thing but the bad thing is that we need more individuals to mine Bitcoin and run nodes, not governments. I think that it's clear how commercial mining is bad itself, so government mining will be worse. They will try to get lots of hash rates and will probably force local commercial mining companies to follow certain directions and orders, which means that there is a big chance they'll censor the network.
Btw I don't think governments are dangerous for the price because they'll hold it and won't trade with it. It will be bad if some of them decide to sell a huge portion of Bitcoins at once but I think that won't happen. Their holding BTC will benefit Bitcoin's price.

I don't think that would be the case too, nobody in their right mind currently would give all of their fortune of billions or trillions to try to profit / control BTC.
Simply non-viable.

That would actually be better for the price of Bitcoin and would not lead to a geopolitical war against any country because Bitcoin is different from other assets like money or whatever. And you should also know that the government of El Salvador itself has long seen Bitcoin as something important to have and has also legalized Bitcoin into any payment if the owner is willing to give up Bitcoin for something else. So you don't need to worry about that because it could actually have a good impact on the price of Bitcoin when there are many countries that want to buy and have Bitcoin as a reserve asset for their own country.

There are Bitcoin mining activities in El Salvador and Russia but if you want to name a country with most success in Bitcoin, it's Bhutan.

El Salvador is more famous with their Bitcoin Legal Tender, a first country ever made it, and their investment in Bitcoin with DCA strategy.
https://nayibtracker.com/

Bhutan
https://intel.arkm.com/explorer/entity/druk-holding-investments
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bhutan-bitcoin-mining-with-hydropower-since-btc-price-was-5-000
https://bitcoinist.com/bhutan-millions-bitcoin-mines/

No. Geopolitical war like World War III first before time for Bitcoin war.

If what is meant is about Could a country's government start to become the largest holder of Bitcoin in the future? So the answer is clear yes if more and more countries start to adopt Bitcoin in their countries too. It's just that I'm not sure about calling him the pope because government is not essentially owned by individuals. but it actually belongs to the state which is of course for the development of the state and the state belongs to all its citizens. So it's just like the combined funds of everyone in the country.

But if more and more countries compete to collect bitcoin then I would not be surprised if at that time all countries will try to be the one who accumulates the most bitcoin holdings themselves. And to be honest, that's a pretty good thing on the one hand. Although there are certainly negative effects. But that's the risk. However, we can still more easily see a country's bitcoin ownership and everything can be seen openly on the Blockchain. And I think this kind of transparency is very good.
And the price might indeed be more stable. but until the geopolitical bitcoin war occurs, honestly I haven't thought about it yet.

I do believe that with bitcoin being owned by more governments, there is a possibility of stability since most likely these governments would be using bitcoin as their reserves and would be holding them and would not be using them for transactions
It could be but it could also just lead to nothing. Maybe countries will just mind their own business or own bitcoins I should say. It is a digital currency and decentralized too so not one country can express ownership over bitcoin and therefore might not exactly be used for geopolitical war.

Bitcoin is still far from political conflicts, but if it reaches a certain market capacity (10 trillion or more), it will have penetrated the economy to the point where it will have a negative/positive impact on many countries, and thus economic wars will be avoided. The real problem will be if political conflict begins around it and it is still an emerging market, then it will be easy to influence it.

Wait until countries start buying Bitcoin as a national reserve as that would be a clear sign that they are serious about it. However, countries that mine Bitcoin aren’t taking as much risk compared to those that buy and hold it for the long term.

What’s happening now is just part of the process, and even if more countries focus on mining, it won’t drastically change the current landscape.

By the way, aside from El Salvador and Russia, there are other state-sponsored mining operations, including Bhutan and Iran.

Miners generate approximately 450 Bitcoins per day, and that’s a fixed supply regardless of how many new players enter the mining space. Even if more countries get into mining, it won’t increase the number of Bitcoins produced.

That’s why I don’t think it would be profitable for them unless they can compete with the top miners in the industry. Without high efficiency and low costs, they’d just be burning money trying to keep up.

https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/bitcoin-halving-2024/

This is the part that saddens me with the fundamentals of various government trying to come into this industry, the El Salvador story and the proposed plan of the US according to the campaign promises of Donald Trump to make Bitcoin foreign reserve. Anything government comes into most times won't favour the masses. There will be a lot of price manipulation. Government has money to throw around once there's an aim to achieve. Government won't mind selling at a loss once doing that frustrates their target or jeopardizing taxpayers by buying at ridiculous high prices when clearly not necessary. I won't be joyous once various governments begin to rank top hodlers of Bitcoin.

I don't really understand what you mean by geopolitical Bitcoin wars, as for the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, it cannot be changed or manipulated, come to think of it, political leaders are not even interested investment in cryptocurrency because of the duration of time it will take before it starts yielding profit, most political office holders are interested in investment that will give quick cash especially when they are still in office, however the decentralized nature of Bitcoin limit's their corruption activities, so they really wouldn't give it second thought.

They possibly can do that especially if they make Bitcoin reserve to happen. They could buy a lot of volume then defeat those big institution for acquiring large volume of Bitcoin.

That's why there's a concern that this reserve plan is somehow dangerous since government might find something useful to them and they became the number one manipulator which is bad on the ecosystem also for people who hold Bitcoins.

I'm also confused about geopolitical Bitcoin war word maybe try to explain it on simple terms so that people could get your point on what you are saying here.

Bitcoin is decentralized and can never cause war in any form between the countries that wants to acquire more of it, and despite that the governments are getting interested and wanting to buy a large amount of Bitcoin, it doesn't affect the  decentralized nature of Bitcoin and it will not already prevent other small investors from buying Bitcoin from themselves too.

Probably. Now that bitcoin is expensive, the only ones who can buy large amounts are basically governments, because they can even print the money they need to buy it.


I do not share this pessimism. If governments want to ban it, too bad, if they want to buy it, too bad. Governments will do what they see fit, not what certain bitcoiners want.

Bitcoin wars sounds dramatic. If countries mine Bitcoin to become the biggest whales why should it cause geopolitical problems. Every country follows its own path. Let Russia, El Salvador and others do as they please with their Bitcoin plans.

Bitcoin Spot ETFs, companies like Strategy (MicroStrategy), and surely governments like El Salvador, Bhutan then bigger and richer countries like the USA. Governments have power to print money if they want, but they'll never announce that they are printing more money because of their plans to purchase more bitcoins.

So far mostly they have mass bitcoins from seizures in the past when Bitcoin price was very low.
https://newhedge.io/bitcoin/government-treasuries

it may lead to more centralization of bitcoin. especially since the government has more resources to allocate compared to the average investor. this will make the price of bitcoin likely to increase significantly and make more people chase to own bitcoin because of its very good value. but this may not happen in the near future. maybe 2 more cycles until it happens. so if there is an opportunity to buy now, one should not delay it any longer because the bitcoin market is growing now and it is still affordable for the average investor.

If this ever happens then the masses will suffocate with the worst form of inflation ever. The be any government who has the interest of it's citizens will do is rather sell their reserves to buy some bitcoin or preferably take a long term loan from the bank and pay back during the bull run.

Crypto like any other currency can be bought over by the government if they wish to. Imagine selling national reserves just to acquire as much Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as possible. The can even manipulate price so holders will be tempted to sell and this the reduce the amount held by the masses and try to see how things get slightly centralised even while maintaining the protocol of the respective Blockchain each of this coin exists in.

Some government are already among the biggest Bitcoin whales but the whales in the market can not be only the government as there is always going to be some individuals and companies that will be among the whales. The more a few people own more Bitcoin, there is always going to be the fear of manipulation happening in the markets because some of them can decide to sell or fake sell to create panic in the market and this will cause the price of Bitcoin to fall and when that happens it will make the trust in Bitcoin to begin to be reduce for sometime because people will begin to see Bitcoin as as tool used by the governments but this will not last because the people will get use to the governments manipulating the price that it would not work again when they try the same tricks.

There would be no war but lack of supply and as we know whatever that has higher demands often inflates in price, therefore if more country or nation uses Bitcoin as a reserved funds you would see Bitcoin becoming difficult to acquire as the price could be too high to purchase and, no Bitcoin could be printed when supply are extremely low and demand is higher. I believe with time this may likely happen as Bitcoin is moving to that phase where government would have no options than join the chorus.

Need to also look at the manipulation probability if different governments begin to accumulate Bitcoin as reserves, El Salvador already holds good amounts, the US government will soon if all manifestos are brought into consideration by Trump, this will make the US country one of the most highest body to hold Bitcoin. If more and more governments follow the lead from Trump, the market circulation flows within governments causing easy manipulation in the market, by then the government will not be seeking any interest or harm it will cause to mere investors who are not part of the whales.

The government move or support of Bitcoin mining help the ecosystem but most of the government that make this move only do it to increase their tax income not for having enthusiasm in Bitcoin.

This could lead to geopolitical Bitcoin since country like the US, and the China are always battle for supremacy in the ecosystem they both engage in. Aside from that, we should also expect a huge manipulation in the market price because they only join the market to make profit out of it not for the love of the technology.

Time will come governments will become the biggest Bitcoin whales. This is not a matter of if. But it isn't just mining that will make them so. After all, they own the money-printing machines. If Bhutan accumulated so much Bitcoin by honestly earning it via mining, the US could just print money out of thin air and use the proceeds to buy Bitcoin. If this happens, other governments will certainly follow. As a matter of fact, as early as now there are already countries silently buying Bitcoin.

Price stability won't be a result of this. If the market is dominated by whales, it will create volatility more than stability.

On the contrary, from what I see, everyone is excited about the government's plan to make bitcoin a national reserve because it will positively impact the price of bitcoin. I don't see anyone complaining or expressing concern about how this will affect the bitcoin ecosystem because all people care about is the price of bitcoin, nothing else.



I think OP is talking about the war for bitcoin like the great powers are waging war for mineral resources like oil, rare earth...But I don't think that will happen because bitcoin is not a mineral resource and is not an important asset for countries. Many countries don't even care about bitcoin like China, how can there be a war just because of fighting over bitcoin?

Governments won't open up their printers just to speculate on BTC, imo.

It would be a very controversial move from them.

It's one thing when it's done for loans and such, and it's another when you go into the speculative asset (in their minds, that is).

I don't know where you read that the Russian government is mining Bitcoin, all I know is that people in Russia are free to mine, unlike the stringent policy Putin wanted to enforce until the Western sanction made him rethink.

Let's even assume that the government is mining Bitcoin, do you think they will allow a decentralised system to hold their centralised power and drive? Putin, for instance, is an authoritarian, he will only take the benefits from Bitcoin by investing in it and for freer cross-border trades but will never allow it to reduce his control of power and resources.

Yeah, even if it may be done, it would be done so only to avoid sanctions / etc. Business stuff.

That is very interesting idea about what might happen to Bitcoin in future. It is probably going to happen that governments will start playing big role in Bitcoin market and that will have big effect on value of Bitcoin like we can see that how US Government is acting on Bitcoin value. Like you said governments can print more money and they will use it to buy Bitcoin so this can make more people want to buy it and because of this price go up and down. It is also interesting that some countries might already be buying Bitcoin in secret. If governments do start buying a lot of Bitcoin it is hard to say what will happen to market but it is likely that price will be unstable.

I don't think they would bite the hand that feeds them (being the fiat, to turn it into BTC), though, maybe, some of the countries may do something like that, but on a very small scale.

What they currently cannot control, they will always look for ways to control it, especially this is a matter of large finances that flow all the time to Bitcoin. Therefore we may be increasingly required to tighten our grip and not easily let go of small ownership, no matter how much bitcoin we have, they will try to withdraw it more and more every day by shaking the price in the market and they are ready to take it from below as the whales do.

Eventually yes but at the moment, the vast majority of them are too scared to dip their toe in. Many governments are more crypto friendly than they were, setting up regulations & allowing innovation but as far as outright buying Bitcoin, only El Salvador is taking the step.

The impact on price can occur when sales are made in large quantities compared to demand. If a country or large company that owns a large amount of Bitcoin sells a large amount of Bitcoin, it can cause a big change in price. This is based on the law of supply and demand. Whether it is directed to politics, that's the business of the person who directs it.

Behind the current decline in Bitcoin prices which has caused the market to go red, does anyone know if this is because there is a large exchange that is selling?
Regarding the information that there is an exchange that is selling Bitcoin, I found out from one of my friends.

I think this is a great point about governments accumulating BTC, but what if they're not just buying to hold or mine? What if they're actively using their national resources to manipulate the market? That's a whole other can of worms and could lead to some seriously destabilizing moves in the global economy.

Bitcoin is decentralized and no one can control it if more nation states accumulate BTC, then the price may decrease slightly on decentralization and price stability but this will not last long. This is the main opportunity for investors to invest if the price goes up they will get good profits. A political bitcoin war is a possible scenario which could bring major changes in the financial sector in the future. It is difficult to say what the outcome of this war will be it is certain that bitcoin and cryptocurrency will play an important role in our financial lives in the future.

Exactly it will happen especially if the reserve proposed plan will be approve, for sure that government will be the main competitor of those big institutions that's why somehow I'm afraid about negative effect of this situation. Since they have power to manipulate the market if they became the biggest holder since they can influence people's mind towards what they like to happen.

But let see the real situation since we don't experience that yet and we are just speculating about the possible result. So hopefully we can see some positive instead of negative effect of those plans they do.

If more nation-states accumulate BTC their impact on:

Decentralization:

Bitcoin network is fully decentralized, I do not think the government can be able to make the Bitcoin network centralized, they can only integrate centralized application on the Bitcoin network but can never affect the blockchain to make it centralized.  So I believe there will be no impact on the decentralization aspect of the Bitcoin network.  Holding Bitcoin which is POW, is very different from holding a cryptocurrency that has a staking feature like ETH.

If we talk about the market, obviously those who have control over huge amount of Bitcoin can always manipulate the market price, it may be considered to reduce the decentralization of Bitcoin since some powers are obstructing the decentralized market of Bitcoin, but if we talk about the Bitcoin network activity, still I do not think the decentralization will be affected.

About the price stability,

If the nation decides Bitcoin to be their reserve, then we can see a long-term stability of Bitcoin, but if the country just wanted to play the market, then the price stability will be affected due to buy and sell action of a huge holder especially if they take advantage of the market uptrend, in short, it will make the Bitcoin price highly volatile.


There is a possibility between nation competing to amass Bitcoin, and or if there is a conflict between country and one tried to avoid the sanction by using Bitcoin.  As long as there is greed, the possibility of geopolitical wars is always there, may it be Bitcoin or other things.

I don't expect they could have such an investment plan. Of course, they might buy and hold some, but I'm not expecting them to the extent that they will invest a lot of bitcoin. I may be wrong, but I believe the government will never take the risk of their money for the uncertain situation of bitcoin. They'd rather prefer to spend money on a sure return on investment like bonds.

But if it happens that the price of bitcoin can be controlled, they are already buying them. But the fact that it is impossible, they even pushed it away.

We never know. Maybe there have been some purchases from the government that were never disclosed. Privacy is offered to everyone in bitcoin even for the governments. Even if transactions are public in the blockchain we still don’t know whose transactions those are. Some of them might have been studying bitcoin already by buying them and learning about the market’s movement. One thing for sure is that many countries will start buying soon and El Salvador has been the first to do this.

I am against the fact that the government will be whales we all know how selfish they can be and that is why they need to take things extreme so that they will be the ones controlling things there are a lot of mistakes that can happen when the government is in serious control and this are all reasons why the idea of them been whales is not a good one for me because they will use their power in the government to manipulate things in their favor that is what politicians are known for but with time when they're more individuals whales than the government is happier.

and if they are investing as normal countries then it is good because it will help the economy of the country because the countries that tried it are doing very well and have helped there economy because the one priority of the government is to make the economy better for its people, and it will help the currency to of the people there whole lot of individuals that use bitcoin as there side hustle so the government should let things be and then just invest.

Before governments, there are people with lots of Bitcoins and there are exchanges with lots of Bitcoins. If governments decide to become the biggest whales, then they'll have a necessity of buying hundreds of thousands Bitcoins from these holders and exchanges. If this happens, then the price of Bitcoin will be significantly high as a result of ridiculous demand from governments. Financially, it's one of the best thing that can happen to Bitcoin but on the other hand, it will ruin Bitcoin to my mind. It will become a store of value instead of solving the e-commerce problems, for which it was created, to act as a P2P payment method.

Yeah, El Salvador was the first country to make BTC a legal tender, but take note that BTC is no longer a legal tender in El Salvador. The IMF has forced El Salvador to annul that decision in order to grant them a loan, which they did.

To the op, i don't think there is going to be any geopolitical wars because of BTC, however, with all the talk of BTC strategic reserve in many countries, it is obvious that many countries are going to be big holders of BTC and we have to wait and see the impact and the sort of manipulation they will have on the price of BTC.

Of course, the more Bitcoin is in the hands of governments, it will affect decentralization in one way or another, although we support governments owning Bitcoin as a reserve, but at the same time we hope that this will not affect Bitcoin's decentralization.

The United States, led by Trump, announced that it will seek to make all Bitcoin mining American, so of course there may be competition from other countries, especially Russia, and we may witness geopolitical Bitcoin wars.

El Salvador and Bhutan are already into it but there are government agencies who are accumulating Bitcoin in masses and it's quite obvious once they hodl significant amount of Bitcoin which can be used to fluctuate price of Bitcoin they would definitely do it just like how whales have been doing it for years now. But, it's not a good sign if government hodls significant amount of Bitcoin as they are not holding it for ROI as they hodl it to have control over Bitcoin as they can never align with concept of decentralisation.

I don't have much knowledge about that aspect but I don't think that there's anything wrong when countries decide to move into crypto mining. I believe that's going to be helpful for the community as more and more countries try their best to be on top when it comes to mining and that way Bitcoin mining difficulty increase and that can somehow help Bitcoin to gain value. However, for those miners who mine on their own equipment might face some problems as their miners won't be able to compete with countries. Surely, such approach is against decentralization but no one can do anything.

I think you are right about Russians about their lifestyle and what they know how to do very well but that doesn't mean that the government can not invest in Bitcoin, Russia is one of the strong countries that value weapons because they always take war very serious but having an interest in Bitcoin is not bad, no matter hard a country is there are still some things that will draw the country attention to do it, and from my observation, there is no any country that will not like to do invest in Bitcoin.

I will not be surprised if I see many countries like Russia coming out to invest in Bitcoin because many countries don't believe in Bitcoin and currently they are the countries that want to use the opportunity of Bitcoin to improve the standard of their country, the people having issues with Bitcoin are the government and with the way things are going the government have started to know the value of Bitcoin.

The impact that it's going to have on Bitcoin is that price will spike and sooner we will reach $200k. It might not also be the case but I am guessing that when the government of different countries have acquired a lump sum of Bitcoin and use it for their federal reserve it's certain that price will get to a very high price peak sooner than we expect. If maybe price was to reach $200k in the next bull season, it might not take that long again for price to reach there.

Indeed, each country seems to have its stakes in how they would like to view the potential that is available, including in the creation of new forms of asset. The actions observed are always with regards to the national interest in economic domains, security, and future stability. Traditional and cryptocurrencies that are led by Bitcoin currently are enjoying a boost in the recognition from many countries for a number of reasons beyond their transactional roles. It is not only about profit-making out of this technology but the way and manner a country can control, protect and harness this technology within structures. It is possible to state that changes exist and are inevitable, the function of the government in relation to existing developments cannot be disputed as well.

This is quite possible, companies can't be as big as nations, or at least companies within a nation cant be as big as the nation itself (usually). Sure Apple is huge, Tesla is huge, Nvidia is huge, Amazon is huge, but all of them combined can't even be just debt of USA let alone the size lol.

So this can be applied to almost every nation as far as I know, and that means every nation will have governments as the biggest holders. Sure some companies will own more than governments because they were early, like having more than microstrategy would be tough, they were early and they got a ton of it quickly, so some nations won't have more than that, but it is still quite obvious that it is going to be benefiting these governments to hold as much as possible.

I don't see any bitcoin war happening among nations; there could just be competition to see who can accumulate and hold a larger portion, but for them to fight over it, I don't see that happening.

To some extent, if the government holds a large portion of Bitcoin, they can easily manipulate the price to some level, as they now hold Bitcoin in their hand, but the decentralised nature of Bitcoin will still remain; the government can only control the one they hold and not that of others.

The number of bitcoin that is in the hands of individuals and private institutions is a way higher than the number of bitcoin in the hands of the government. So, I have no fear that government will become the biggest BTC whales. Although, I have a great concern, if the price of bitcoin keeps flying so high, individuals might sell off and hand it over to the government there by enabling government to own more number of bitcoins that will give them undue advantages. If there are more hodlers like Satoshi who are not ready to sell no matter how high the price, we could be rest assured that we aren't going to be r*ped by the government anytime.

I feel like it's companies that will hold the most. They will start to make backup wallets, turning all the additional cash they're sitting on into bitcoin and gold.

It's what Saylor said, most companies have a lot of money that they don't know how to use. They don't know how to put it to work and holding fiat money is risky, while holding real estate is pointless for a company that needs some liquidity. Bitcoin is both liquid and safe from inflation. Probably the best thing you can hold as a business, once you're in the 100m+ level.

A war will be imminent if nations from different zone who are not at peace are major hodlers of the coins. They can easily track coins from such addresses and confiscates them. A major war could happen and that could also affect the price of bitcoin. There is nothing like price stability in bitcoin, so you shouldn’t be expecting price stability now or even in the future. Many things are already causing bitcoin not to be stable and those will continue for years. The decentralization is what I feel can still hold on for long but don’t really know for how long it can also hold up before we maybe see some centralisation effects on it as the government because major holder and whales of the currency in the future.

It may be that way too.

If that's the case, BTC would become not as volatile, but adopted into the systems we see now and more stable whenever looking at its charts.

Governments could become the biggest whales in Bitcoin if they continue to accumulate it at a rapid pace. This would be detrimental to decentralization as well as price stability because governments can manipulate prices by buying or selling large amounts of bitcoins. It is also possible that there may be geopolitical conflicts over who controls these coins which could lead to war between countries trying to gain control over them.

Nah, there won't be wars for BTC, that's too much.
They've got all the resources besides the BTC and such, why would they go to such extents?
And, unfortunately, they won't accumulate it fast, as we may envision it, due to regulations / just skepticism towards crypto in general.

If the government actively collects bitcoins, they will easily become a big whale in the market and will manipulate the market the way they want. But the question is, will the government be interested in bitcoin and join the game with us? The government has hundreds, thousands of things to do and handle, I don't think they will have enough time and interest to participate in a speculative game. If they wanted to, they could invest in stocks, forex...but they didn't, so there's no reason they would do the same with bitcoin.

This scenario only happens if the world recognizes bitcoin as an asset as valuable and important as gold or rare earth or of equivalent value. But so far, they still consider it an unstable asset to speculate on.

Bitcoin is just a currency with limited supply, it is not an important asset like metals, natural resources...and buying and selling them is not too difficult, there is no reason for countries to cause war just because of it.

Governments would accumulate via ETFs.
ETFs are regulated against the pump and dumps.
Questions about manipulation should be cleared.

Might be. Although, I have to admit that institutional investment companies are growing their BTC holdings at a very fast pace. Soon, they will hold more BTC than governments. This will definitely impact decentralization (although not directly).

Fortunately, nodes and miners determine network consensus. NOT economic holders. You can have all of the BTC in the world, but you can't use that to approve/deny network upgrades, code changes, etc. Unless those same economic holders run their own BTC miners and network nodes, then Bitcoin will have a problem. The situation is even worse with PoS "shitcoins". We can't predict what governments' next move will be. So expect the unexpected. :)

Yes that's what I believe is already happening.

Just compare the bear markets. It used to be normal for bitcoin to correct 90% from the top, but then we got futures in 2018 and with it came a bit of government and institutional adoption and we haven't seen 90% corrections anymore. I'm sure we wouldn't have made that 70% last bear market if not for 2 major scams that got revealed in the bear market (Luna and FTX) and that made bitcoin go lower than expected.

I'd expect this bear market to end with a 60-70% correction and the next with even less than that, until eventually the cycles end.

Why would cycles end? Because mining revenue will matter less and less, so halving will no longer decide the moment we go from bear to bull. Eventually it's going to be a slow and steady bull market. Bitcoin will become boring like gold, but before that happens we'll see a few more parabolic rises.

I didn't expect the government would take an aggressive course towards Bitcoin mining but just rather become a holder only. In fact, El Salvador has been participating in crypto for many years, but they never pushed themselves to invest more. I couldn't think if they would invest in machines for mining.

If they ever push through, I still don't think this will lead to Bitcoin wars. I'd rather be expecting that scenario if they focused on buying than mining. The more they invest, the more profit they earn, which I think is the easier way than getting involved in mining.

They already the first one who accumulate lots of Bitcoin and provably that if they see that government or shall we say those first world countries will start to buy a lot more Bitcoin for investment purposes then provably that those companies also would continue to accumulate more. I see Microstrategy will be the biggest company would prevail on this since they are consistent with their Bitcoin accumulation.

But lets find out what's going to happen in future since provably Government might have great plans towards this situation since if they find out that mining will be also a good option then provably they might ride and try to create their own farm. But chances for this option is so low but lets really see what going to happen with their participation in crypto space.

Indeed, it's something to worry about a bit, but it's not entirely a total disaster if you look at it from your perspective, which I also agree with. The government can own and control as many bitcoins as they can get their hands on, and if that happens, the fear of price manipulation will be on the people, whether we like it or not. It's something anyone or entity with large numbers can do to some extent, so it's something that shouldn't be overlooked, but like you said, it's not going to be a big problem.

When referring to price and temporary impact (such as when one country sells its entire bitcoin) maybe this will have an impact but for the short term not the long term but there will be no price stability when talking about bitcoin so in the end the situation will remain the same regardless of whether there are countries mining or buying bitcoin with large amounts will not affect or be able to stabilize bitcoin because bitcoin remains unconquerable by them.

They can collect as much as they want but for stability it is clearly difficult because bitcoin is still bitcoin where they cannot be controlled by anyone or any group including by the government so that in the end for the impact of price increases and decreases may occur but to stabilize the price it can never be done.

However, a government can hold Bitcoin as a country's Bitcoin whale. If a country has a lot of dollars saved in reserves, the government of that country can plan and buy and hold Bitcoin from those reserves every day. For example, the president of El Salvador will purchase and deposit one bitcoin per day into their reserves, which has become their national slogan.

The president's plan is to buy one bitcoin every day, no matter what the price of bitcoin is. So if a country like El Salvador wants, the government of that country can buy bitcoin and hold it as a bitcoin whale.

It doesn't have to be a news story, these kinds of situations between governments are a daily occurrence, we are currently experiencing it with tariffs that are thrown like darts. There is no need to give a special nickname to bitcoin to think that it will happen, they are in process and you have been involving the governments that hold the most bitcoin for several years now.

Why would it become more centralized? That makes absolutely no sense.

The government wants to control bitcoin because they don't want to lose control of the people, they know they will get into a lot of trouble if people use bitcoin as a currency. They don't seek to control it because it is a scarce and valuable asset like other mineral resources like gold or oil, make no mistake about it. So geopolitical Bitcoin wars seem unlikely and will never happen.

What the government wants is to put regulations in place to manage it and make it easier for them to tax people, they are not interested in investing it or trying to hold it as many people mistakenly believe.

The only way that a country can become a whale isn't through mining because it takes time to get the bitcoin that they need, most likely, the accumulation of the whale status is probably going to made possible through various large bitcoin purchases overtime, it's not going to be a far fetch idea though that bitcoin's going to be part of a reserve of many countries because look at it this way, the money is already there and they do recognize the potential already, the only problem is that there's probably still a lot of old heads that are against the idea of having a digital currency as part of the reserve for their country, the acceptance will eventually come, it's only a matter of time now.

Agreed. BTC will remain the same decentralization-wise, it's just that there will be more big players on the broader picture of things.

Exactly. It has always been about control. With centralized exchanges dominating the market, controlling Bitcoin is easy. At least, some of the circulating supply. BTC brings huge taxation benefits to the government, so expect more countries to open up their arms to it. Once CBDCs become a thing, crypto regulations will only get tougher.

Luckily for us, we can trade and use BTC without ever needing to touch a centralized exchange or service. Everything can be done "off-grid", thanks to the decentralized nature of Bitcoin. So long as it stays that way, nothing should be able to stop it. :D

I think that governments will utilize bitcoin so much more than just a strategic reserve. They will refine energy consumption methods around the mining and advocate for less takes and promote higher earnings amongst their citizens if they want adoption to take place. Perhaps Nations will certainly be many of the whales but I just thing there are too many OV whales that outnumber these nations

Well, here we go. We've slipped back into discussing war. It's not enough for us, there's a conflict brewing here too, if you think about it. I'm not sure that this will become a reality anytime soon. Why? At this stage, preference is still given to the "traditional" fiat system, which has proven itself well over many decades. States will not take such a step that could turn the current order upside down. It's too risky and unfounded. A lot of things need to be reconsidered. Yes, Bitcoin has become part of the financial world, but it has not yet been able to become a "full-fledged" participant.

probably the op dont know the true meaning of bitcoin price stability, because if he knows he will not say that. if bitcoin is stable what then drives the massive adoption? because volatility of bitcoin makes people want to accumulate more.

yeah the only way to purchase bitcoin legally now is by doing KYC which involves revealing your identity, so the chances of purchasing bitcoin anonymously is getting slimmer by the day. but the only way i see one can do that is by buying bitcoin directly from someone through DEX p2p. although that one is not even anonymous though but it is somehow better than government regulating your transactions from a KYC exchange.

Although total anonymity is not that good because some group of people might just purchase a large number of bitcoin and hodl for some time and sell to liquidate the market and of couse that will dump the market. so the best way to avoid people who want to buy bitcoin in large quantity and having control of the market is by making sure any person or group of people that want to purchase bitcoin in large quantity will require to do KYC to be able to know them incase they want to sell and liquidate the market due to the large number of bitcoin in there possession, then the necessary thing will be done to prevent geopolitical war.
  

Decentralization is very important for bitcoin. At the same time, decentralization of the first cryptocurrency has a triple essence - decentralization of mining, decentralization of ownership and decentralization of development.

In a situation where bitcoin is owned by governments of states, is it possible to preserve bitcoin decentralization? Yes, in my opinion, it is possible.

There are about 200 different states on the globe. If each of them creates its own bitcoin reserve and starts mining the first cryptocurrency on its own (and all large transnational corporations start doing the same), then in fact we will get strong decentralization, only the owners of nodes and development centers will not be individuals, but individual states and large corporations. At the same time, they will have to somehow agree with each other, and over time they will begin to appreciate the independent and decentralized nature of bitcoin.

Bitcoin will become the basis of a new financial system, on its basis fiat money of individual countries will be issued. And bitcoin itself will be perceived as a universal value, as a supranational financial structure.

The stances of different governments are different and thus confusing also. Like some countries you mentioned are going into mining while others are banning it. It is like taking a bet on crypto based on possible future. If crypto does become more important with time, these economies could also become more powerful.

Bitcoin wars haven't been seen yet, nor will they be seen in the future. As long as the majority of the states are using the fiat system, it is impossible for the majority to look after Bitcoin.

We might see some countries gain interest in Bitcoin, but for sure, not to the point of making it their top priority. Like El Salvador, they did the first risky move, but they are not even multiplying their holdings. It means that they take it cautiously, and the same strategy will be used for other countries.

Do you mean the Russians here or the Russian government, because I don't think I've learnt of the Russian government moving into Bitcoin mining of recent, but I know well that of El-Salvador, they have been into bitcoin mining and investments mostly over the years.


No, Bitcoin cannot be centralized at this cause, the market cannot be manipulated in their behalf for this reason, they can't be the only whales that will be investing on bitcoin, just as we have it now, no whales have been able to achieve any form of centralization over bitcoin.

If it come to spending money on investment, I guess governments are capable of that because they know that they will benefit from the investment before they leave the office for another president to take over, and they will make sure they sell to have Share with the profit before they leave. What El Salvador government is doing today to open the eyes of their citizens to BTC and other cryptocurrencies investment in the country, it will impact so many people to start going into BTC investment to increase profit.

But the effort El Salvador government has made so far for their people to know BTC investment, it will be difficult for Russia government to achieve easy because they will be doubting BTC investment and it will make them not to use big amount of money to invest in BTC.

Nope. They only hold 1% of it. They are not the biggest btc whales.

Those real whales just lurk around the ocean, they are literally can't be seen and will not show their identities unless be used in a specific agenda such as politics.

Don't worry too much about decentralization 'cause the feature is not yet defeated, they only hold less, and the community is still that holds the majority.

I do understand your point but that's not entirely true because we will still have options to purchase bitcoin anonymously although certain risks will be involved.
For example, we can use P2P to directly buy bitcoin for fiat, we also have the option to purchase monero using KYC exchange and then make few transactions on monero network to stay anonymous and then exchange it to bitcoin using DEX.
We will just have to find alternative ways to buy bitcoin anonymously but yeah the bitcoin network will become more centralized when the whales acquire more number of bitcoins.

The government have been working hand to hand with this centralized exchanges and that is were they even add tax for people to pay and that is the only way that they can make them submit and there is a lot of polices that is used to make decision for them, and the only people that have serious power over the market is the whales and only whales have the power to be able to make them submit. If you look at other countries they are making good money from taxing people because in some countries they charge upto 30 % and this what the government wants.

And if they want to go pure on a decentralized exchanges it is better when it comes to crypto because your privacy will be secured and privacy is one of the things that is very needed and the foundation of bitcoin was built on privacy. So this is one of the reasons people are so inlove with bitcoin.

But the circumstances started changing and this is something that a lot of people are not happy about because there people that when it comes to centralized exchanges a lot of people don't want to be part of it.

Governments have many power and tools to control centralized exchanges and force them to obey their regulations. At the end, governments want more money from citizens and business companies in their countries. That's all they want, they want as most money from individual tax to business tax as possible and everything they do just for it.

But this is off topic or derails from this topic, that is "Whether governments become biggest BTC whales?"

They can but they will need some years to do it, from consesus in their constitutions and also need time to purchase bitcoin. If the trend is going with government accumulation on Bitcoin, many countries will compete with each other. Like individual investors, first comes first serves and if a country do it earlier than other countries, they will have big advantage.

I think that's happening now, it seems like it's no different now from countries that are saving Gold as a backup for their country. So it's not unlikely that the time will come when all countries will gradually make it their bitcoin reserves in their territory.

Look at the big countries today that can also be considered strong countries, they also have large holdings of bitcoin in fact, and it's also widespread throughout the world
as to which countries have bitcoin holdings.

Nations can make it up to the list of whales but they can’t outnumber the already existing ones who have started accumulating and mining bitcoin right from the early days, government have the resource to make things work and make their citizens to also join the queue but their is limit to the extent that they can go make things work.

Banning Bitcoin is a wrong idea and wrong digestion of information regarding Bitcoin but it's cool, one way or the other a time will come when Banning of Bitcoin will be something of the past but it will be late then to buy Bitcoin cheap because many of their developers sold out of compliance and we're afraid of the brutal punishment that may comes later but I would have probably left and go to another country where Bitcoin is appreciated by people who see the value.n

I don't know how true is the mind of US government and how they want to make Us the place of Bitcoin but if thag eventually happen and they get recognition, Bitcoin will not be something that is ban again, even the people that don't like to hear about Bitcoin will want to hear it, even if they don't have plans to have their own strategic plans with Bitcoin will lift that ban because you can't say something US government spend his time on to get to office will be there, they can even secretly have Bitcoin but wouldn't tell the public they have Bitcoin.

The market is unpredictable, and the people we are speaking about have the smartest people on the planet on their palm. who have the ability to invent a way to control the entire market or scare the existing whales into dumping some of their bags so they can amass. Don't be so certain that they can't outnumber the current whales in the market; the example what we're seeing now in the market. The most crucial thing right now is that each Bitcoin user keeps their BTC in a safe self-custodial wallet instead of exchange.

If the market can easily be manipulated and controlled by invention from government and its agencies don’t you think that it could have been done long ago before now? I don’t doubt you saying the smartest people can invent a great thing but for the purpose you point at I don’t agree with that, some whales don’t get move no matter the pressure on the market, the government will always have Bitcoin to buy from small and short time holders.

Russia? I'm not sure Russia has been crypto friendly. Those guys have been an attack vector to Bitcoin and don't like anything crypto unless there is a change about there government and views on Bitcoin. That aside, only US has been shouting about reserve and their plans for crypto. I can't affirm if this will be possible but if they which is conditional, if they do trust me other countries will follow later but for now, it's just formal talks and we can't rely on that alone.

El Salvador legal tender is there but the people didn't use Bitcoin as many expected, the free Bitcoin that was airdrop to them sold everything but perhaps if US start their promises about Bitcoin there is going to be a huge demand in Bitcoin as exchange for people that really want to accept but people that are not used to it and used to traditional currencies will find it hard to accept it because of the volatility they may face if they accept it from customers.

The United States and China already hold a significant amount of Bitcoin according to bitcointreasuries.net. Most of this came from seizing coins that were related to a criminal investigation. There has been some speculation that if a Bitcoin reserve was created by Trump, it would start a competition among countries to see who can accumulate the most BTC. This might be overly-optimistic thinking from people who want to see the value of their holdings increase significantly.

Countries like Russia, Iran and North Korea might already own a large amount, but the idea of spending taxpayer funds to buy Bitcoin is not likely to go over well in countries that are not under sanctions. It was a controversial idea in El Salvador and in the United States, according to one survey (https://www.security.org/digital-security/cryptocurrency-annual-consumer-report/), a Bitcoin reserve does not have a lot of support from the general population.

This is true, most people probably aren’t fully educated about crypto yet, and with the high scam rate, its reputation  might not be looking good for them. But at the end of the day, the government knows what they’re doing, and they’re the ones making the decisions.

As long as their crypto reserves stay at an acceptable level, I don’t think they’ll go all-in, since Bitcoin’s volatility makes it a risky asset. But the fact that they’re even considering Bitcoin as part of a national reserve is already huge news. Other countries might want a piece of the action too, but let’s see if the U.S. really follows through and takes the lead as they’ve promised.

If more countries start using bitcoin, it could become as valuable as gold. This might make its price more stable but it could also lead to competition with some countries trying to control the bitcoin market.

They won't "use" per se, just hodl it like the rest of us, albeit in bigger quantities.
But surely, it will have a positive effect in the long run.

It's wild to think about countries like El Salvador and Russia is jumping into bitcoin mining with state-backed efforts. I mean, if more nations get on this, it could really shake things up, potentially centralizing power and threatening bitcoin's whole decentralization vibe.

It might even tie BTC closer to global politics, which wouldn't be surprising if we start seeing some kind of "Bitcoin wars" between countries trying to accumulate as much as they can. It's definitely going to be fascinating to see how this plays out.

I don't think they will go to such extents to undermine the network that much.

It's a good development for sure, but nothing to worry about.

Hasn't Russia shown signs of interest in Bitcoin mining? I've heard rumors that Russia is using crypto to avoid sanctions. It might've restricted citizens to participate in crypto, but government officials could be mining and trading it in secret. With popularity rising, it would be dumb enough to ignore the crypto/Blockchain bandwagon. Especially, Bitcoin which has seen a surge in demand lately. Prices have gone higher ever since Donald Trump won the 2024 election.

So yes, more governments will increase their BTC stockpile with the hopes of profiting in the long run. Even institutional investors are in the game. If you haven't bought BTC yet, I'd suggest you get in before it's too late. You'll thank me later. ;)

It is too early to talk about this stage in which countries will enter into a war over Bitcoin because this is theoretically technically almost impossible unless technology develops in the future to allow colonial powers to plunder the resources of colonies in reality and on the Internet as well, or to steal them publicly since it is not difficult to discover this because Bitcoin is not like precious metals that are easy to steal.

It is almost evident that countries competing to collect the largest possible balance of Bitcoin will gradually turn into Bitcoin whales capable of monopolizing the network. In my opinion, no matter how big the whale countries become, there are always other parties that have long started storing Bitcoin that will be able to continue supporting decentralization and always reduce the authority of whales. In my opinion, the fears of who will control mining in the future with the increasing difficulty and increasing cost of investment, which perhaps only countries with huge budgets or some very few companies will be able to do.

Countries like El salvador accumulating more BTC isn’t bad in my opinion, this will definitely result in price increase and that’s good one after all.

I don't think the governments can be the heaviest whales we are going to be having, though we may not include El-Salvador in this, because they were already known for bitcoin investment right from time, but as of now, currently we can't predict on which country is going to accept bitcoin as it's official and legal currency, then also have the same mentality for investing in bitcoin, but since their leader is already showing interest for crypto reserve, let's expect that bitcoin should be the first consideration on this.

I can see things getting messy if countries start using bitcoin to dodge sanctions or shake up the money game. Some leaders might freak out and try to block it to keep their grip but others might jump on it to get ahead.

Fiat would still be their main way of doing such things, don't worry much  ;)

I don't think so. Especially when no one controls Bitcoin. Governments can only block or censor centralized exchanges. P2P transfers and/or trades are impervious from sanctions. All thanks to Bitcoin's decentralized design. I'm pretty sure Russia used BTC to circumvent sanctions since 2022. With its recent announcement of legalizing Bitcoin mining, you can see where this is heading to.

Would you imagine most of the world's countries switching to Bitcoin? That would mark the end of the corrupt Fiat money system. This sounds crazy, but not impossible. I know Fiat gives governments more control/power. But if people lose trust in it, what use will that be? With Bitcoin, everybody wins. Hopefully, it doesn't get compromised in the long run.

Or they just may use it to cash out back to their good ol' fiat bags in the end.
 ;)

If the government of each country really did that I could say that it is possible that they could become btc whale holders of bitcoin depending on the number they can buy and save for the future. But right now it seems like only a few countries can do this, right?

Because to my knowledge there is only one person who is a bitcoin capitalist like Michael Saylor who is in the thousands of bitcoin or 100k$ and up,
he already has bitcoin saved compared to the majority country who are still skeptical about bitcoin according to my knowledge.

When do we think the government of each country will see the potential of Bitcoin and buy to hold as reserve? Recall, Trump never liked Bitcoin from day one, he hated it and there records where he said few things until his last day in office, he stand remain the same. Kamala and Biden did the same thing just like they do put the interest of Americans first but because Trump needed to get back to office, he changed his views which might not be the case in other countries.

If they don't like Bitcoin, nothing will make them change their mind. Tbe executive order he has been signing up and down are all the promises he made during his campaign and not to be a liar, he is doing that now but they are not buying any Bitcoin. They/he promised to hold the seized Bitcoin in the last 7 years, that wasn't the promise he made and now everyone is saying "yea he fuck up us up but we will be fine in the end". This is what you get for trusting someone so desperate.

Countries are beginning to have policies that allow the national reserve to be stocked in bitcoin and as we know governments have large funds to buy large amounts pf bitcoin if that becomes the result there are going to be whales in the future but this all depends on the actions those countries are taking in their bitcoin buying process.

Other than that also see how those few countries like El Salvador 🇸🇻 who became bitcoin states and made capital investments to help build the bitcoin ecosystem to the level of having a stake in the network like generating their energy and building a mining farm as proposed along the bitcoin city and volcano project.

In the past one month, we've seen governments of top global economic countries declare interest in buying Bitcoin in large quantities —the US government which happens to be controlling the largest economy in the world is part of this trend. With the involvement of the US government in buying Bitcoin reserve, I think it'll influence other governments of the world to follow suit and because we know the government have more financial strength to buy more than individuals, it's very likely that governments will become the biggest whales in Bitcoin ownership in no distant time

We're already seeing that happening.

The reality is that, it won't be just countries becoming the new whales but corporate firms will become one of the largest holders as well since price appreciation in the future is more than enough incentives to hold treasury funds as strategy reserve in Bitcoin.

Recently Michael Saylor has proposed over $21B to buy Bitcoin. If my math is right, he would buy all new mined bitcoin from now till next halving alone.

No country except El Salvador has directly given official legal approval to Bitcoin, so there is no accurate information available about Bitcoin investments in any other country except for the Bitcoin investment of the President of El Salvador. However, other countries that have more reserves than Bitcoin must have some form of confiscated Bitcoin. It is not a country that has invested legally, but rather has confiscated Bitcoin from those who have invested in Bitcoin illegally.

It won’t be bad for them to accumulate more bitcoin but the thing is they are even among the lowest Bitcoin holders among countries which hold Bitcoin even as they made it a legal tender, their resources won’t allow them to have much more compare to what other countries have acquired through seizure, price increase is not only attached to countries having more bitcoin, as that have more negative effect than positive one.

It's true that it has negative impacts the idea of ​​depositing bitcoin in a country like El Salvador is a very bold and innovative move but it also comes with some risks. Given bitcoin's global acceptance and price volatility it could be a double edged sword for the country's economic security if the country can manage it properly and take educational initiatives for the local population bitcoin could benefit them in the long run.

I think any Government will always ask something they don't know specifically to a big private investor, let's say they rate it a little below BlackRock especially if they have been in the business for a long time and understand it.

Watch where BTC is going and why all small, large and government institutions will continue to buy BTC in large amounts in the future because a recession is just around the corner and BTC is an undeniable safe haven asset to use as their reserve.

Eventually all is allowed by them. ;D ;D

On paper it looks like a great idea, but there is so much red tape to cross especially that this involves public funds to fund such project's,  and I know El Salvador has done this before (not mining though  ::)) but not sure if other countries can take this up because accountability Is a bit difficult to put across when price can go down dropping the portfolio value.

So for me I believe private entities will always be the biggest whales as they have less red tape and have had the headstart for many year's.

You are mistaken if you believe that this centralized world is free from control. Isn't it the government that holds this power? The U.S. government, for example, has seized thousands of illegal Bitcoins from criminals involved in unlawful activities online. Some time ago, they auctioned off a portion of these Bitcoins, but not all of them. Without spending a dime, they now possess a significant amount of Bitcoin.

Put aside any misconceptions you may have; the government is likely to hold more Bitcoin than anyone else—unless they choose not to. They can continuously print money and invest it in Bitcoin, fueling a competition among nations. In the near future, we may witness a conflict over Bitcoin as countries compete against one another.

Countries can accumulate Bitcoin to become whales. They would be laying foundations for future generations to have an improved way of life than their forefathers. Only in future if their BTC has fiat value will we say it was successful gamble but more countries would have to legalise Bitcoin as a tender.

Yes, and it depends on who is sitting as the head of that country. That's why Bukele try to bend their laws to allow him to run for another term. And so with him, winning, they continue to accumulate as much as Bitcoin as they can.

In terms of Trump, very hard for him to be elected again consecutively, and so with that, if he losses, they will make a U-turn and not hold their Bitcoin and might go to another auction to sell, just like what they have been doing in the past.

The government has the money printing press and they easily control this hundred trillion dollar economy, and even though the bitcoin network is decentralized but it runs on the flow of money from the economy. So it would be naive to say that bitcoin would escape their hands if they wanted to.

But I don't believe there will be conflicts between countries because of bitcoin. Bitcoin is not oil, gas, rare earths or gold, and despite its potential but it is just a virtual asset. As long as you have money, you can buy as much as you want, it's not like other mineral resources. So there will never be a geopolitical conflict because of bitcoin.

Obviously when a government of a country invests in bitcoin, there is no doubt that they will be one of the whale investors of Bitcoin because they are the ones who hold the taxes of the citizens under their jurisdiction in their country.

However, at this time, only a few countries are really investing in bitcoin and other top altcoins. Then the others, even if they are individuals, have accumulated much more bitcoins than other countries that invest in bitcoin, just like Michael Saylor, Elon Musk, Vitalik Buterin if I am not mistaken. And other tycoon businessmen who are interested in Bitcoin or large companies around the world that are also investing in Bitcoin like Blackrock and others.

I do not think so. Even if government were to own at least a substantial amount of BTC in the market, there are still factors that are present that counters inflation and total price control from these entitites.

Remember that BTC is a deflationary crypto with its limited supply of 21 million (which is expected to be fully mined by the year 2140). Basing from its price history alone, the trend of its price is upwards- meaning, its price continues to rises as coins are being mined each year. With dozens of forks happening, this translates to volatility. I really doubt that the price of BTC would be stable in the market. I mean, that is what makes BTC so attractive to investors- you can either profit/lose money in a relatively short amount of time.


I would also agree on your statement. I do believe that if a certain entity controls majority of the supply in the market, they can at least have a big contribution to its price manipulation in the market. But from the experience of many over the years, I guess this will not do as big damage as some thought of.

If that happens, I'm sure you will see the price of Bitcoin $ 1-2 million/pieces, the general reason for the supply of 21 million will result in Bitcoin to be rare, not to mention the countless bitcoin The amount is immersed in the wallet because the owner dies and another factor reduction of each Halving occurs.

For that, if all countries adopted Bitcoin, you know for yourself what happens to rare goods, but I think that will not happen, only a few countries are brave like El Salvador, others are still pros and cons, because not all countries think like El's mindSalvador, I think it's just a hallucination.

I've been thinking about what'd happen if more countries jumped in to mine and stash bitcoin. I mean, there's only so much of it right? So I figure that could push the price way up, maybe even to crazy high, since it's get harder to grab some. But it kinda worries me too, because if big governments start hoarding it, they might end up controlling too much and that feels off for something that's supposed to be free from all that. I dont think we're headed for wars over bitcoin just yet, most places still seems nervous about going all in. The way its supply stays tight and gets cut in half every few years keeps me hooked, though it's like a slow burn that keeps the value ticking up. For me, the whole point of bitcoin sticking around is that it stays spread out, not locked up by a few big shots. I'm curious to see how it shakes out as more folks wake up to it.

Trump is in his second term as president, which means he cannot run again in the next US election, which will take place in 2028. According to the US Constitution, each president can only serve two terms and the US constitution is more complex than any other country in the world, changing or amending the constitution is almost impossible.

That's right, if the Democrats regain control of the White House in 2028, bitcoin reserves will almost certainly be repealed and they will likely try to sell those bitcoins.  The only way to prevent that from happening is for the Trump administration to turn the strategic bitcoin reserve into a bill, and to do that, they need to convince Congress to approve a strategic bitcoin reserve. But I doubt they will be able to succeed because the Democrats are almost against the idea.

It has to be about market manipulation and control otherwise countries would not have Bitcoin in their sights. There is a limited supply of Bitcoin in circulation of which many have been lost because of inexperience or negligence. Over time countries will become the biggest whales because they have the biggest money available to buy.

Only if they will see the reason to do so on such a scale.
 ;)
Most are still ignorant.

That's a big "IF". A recent poll showed the Democratic Party's favorability rating decline. They're unpopular as ever. I doubt this will change by 2028. Despite Trump's controversial tariffs, America is a lot safer thanks to the President's increasing deportation efforts. I have faith that the American economy will eventually recover after a short period of "pain". Hopefully, Congress will turn the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve into a bill to make it official.

I'd say Gold is history as Bitcoin adoption increases at a fast pace. More governments and investors (both retail and institutional) are adding BTC to their portfolios. $1m is feasible in the long run. As long as there's a balance between governments and people holding Bitcoin, there should be nothing to worry about. Things will start to go in the wrong direction if governments accumulate most of the circulating supply. The future is unpredictable, so I'd hope for the best. :D

It is too early to predict who will be the next president of the United States as Trump has been in office for less than 3 months and anything can happen as in his first term. He unexpectedly lost to Biden in the 2020 election.
In my opinion, nothing is certain until Congress passes a strategic bitcoin reserve. Because there is no guarantee that the next president will support bitcoin even if he is the Republican candidate.

Look at the current price of gold despite the amount of gold mined and supply increasing every year. That shows that the demand for gold has never cooled down, so I don't think gold is history. Although bitcoin has become more popular and has a stronger foothold over the years, but honestly, I don't think it can surpass gold as the choice of the vast majority of people in the world in the near future.

First, it will not be good for the government to have the most of Bitcoin because they might find a way to control it despite being decentralised and that can't be good. It may be a good thing initially to help the price pump, but with time, it will not be. Again, you can't blame the government for not buying Bitcoin, Bitcoin itself is risky in terms of volatility and they have to be cautious of what they can't control. And this doesn't mean they do not invest, governments invest in various ways and forms.

Most countries are not ignorant. They have economy experts who advised them to jump on the gravy train a long time ago without disclosing their intentions. We have not been told their precise BTC balance but expenditures should be published in annual accounts documents.

For them it is good because they are mainly the ones that can benefit out of it but if we know an advance info about their movements we can also benefit on it. Being decentralized doesn't mean it is now free from market manipulation but the ones that being decentralized mean is that our funds won't get frozen just like what we experience on banks, Paypal, and other centralized entities.

Yes. None is forced here anyways. Some governments can even do worse things like banning it. Instead of blaming them, we must be thankful if our government doesn't do this. Another reason to be thankful is like you said earlier, about BTC being manipulatable.

Pretty sure there are, but we do know on how government works and on the hidden schemes that they've been doing behind the curtains and without having that kind of transparency. Its not really that shocking anymore. The current numbers that government do owns arent only those numbers that been known on public, There's always having those plans and we do know that they dont really want to be get left behind on the trend on which specially if this one talks about making money because we do know that more money which means that it do have even more power. Would the be become the BTC whales? There's no doubt on this one on which they can just simply print out fiat and purchase it out. This might be not be looked upon but actually this is happening. Government do always love that manipulation on which this isnt really that talking about into those casual market markers or manipulators.

Of course they’ll, they have no option but to follow the moving train

Few years ago bitcoin seemed like a joke to many but now reverse is the case. Trump is a promoter of bitcoin and i believe others will follow suit

As governments, such as El Salvador and Russia, move into Bitcoin mining, there are definitely some concerns raise about the implications for Bitcoin's decentralization , price, and even "geopolitical Bitcoin wars."

Bitcoin was designed to be completely independently used, so that one person or country can not control everything. But when the governments starts taking over Bitcoin, they can control more, right? The United States, for example, has about 198,000 Bitcoins, which they confiscated from various criminals. Now imagine, if more countries get their hands on more Bitcoin, then Bitcoin's independence will decrease. If states have more power, then they can influence the entire network.

And since Bitcoin is so much volatile, if governments buy or sell Bitcoin, the market can fluctuate wildly. This can be very risky!

 And yes, what if Bitcoin becomes a geopolitical tool for countries? Russia and Iran are already using Bitcoin to circumvent sanctions, so if more countries start looking for Bitcoin, the international situation could become even more tense, and a new war for Bitcoin could flare up.

This has a very easy fix and the coins origin would not be detected. I know the detection would be easier if the coins were moved directly to centralized exchanges, then efficient tools like Chainalysis can trace the origin of the coins and it would probably be blocked by the US, but what if the miners in Russia use a mixer for the coins, or use a VPN while mining to change location or even move coins through decentralized protocols, you can then agree with me that the coins would be harder to trace their origins