Do you think some countries already adding BTC to their reserves?

[FandangledGizmo]

Just wondering what people thought.

My thoughts,

For a relatively small investment, 50-60 million dollars, (+- the value of 1-2 tons of gold) A small country can acquire a 100 000 BTC position.
In the event BTC fails, it is small enough that they would not have to disclose it, but in the event that there are mass bail outs and/or a global fiat crisis then BTC value would skyrocket. In which case, where most countries may be facing some form of revolt, a finance minister/president that could announce he had the foresight to add a BTC position to his countries reserves, now worth billions of dollars, and easily distributable to places in need,  may be seen as a visionary/hero/saviour.

Also whatever China's ultimate position on BTC may be. This last week gave them a great opportunity to accumulate a VERY LARGE 1 000 000 + BTC position without raising, but actually decreasing the price. Personally I think it may soon be a strategic necessity for large countries to take positions in BTC even if they are actively engaged in discouraging it.

(In a currency crisis, besides outperforming gold, BTC may even be seen as superior to gold. Because the public may be skeptical that newly issued notes supposedly now redeemable for gold have not been over-issued and plus there would be distribution hurdles. Meanwhile satoshis could be immediately distributed to places in need in a crisis & are also completely 'verifiable'.)

[LiteCoinGuy]

no of course.

[TonyOliver]

World governments are already acquiring them through seizures of the proceeds of illegal activities. Like the silk road and the virus writers in Germany.

[t1000]

It doesn't work like that. There is a limit to the number of bitcoins ever to exist. Out of the 21 million, only 12 million has been mined. There are many big players holding a lot of coins, like Satoshi (who would probably never move his coins, for doing so signals the second coming of Satoshi), the FBI with their seized coins, the Winklevoss brothers, DPR's missing stash, etc, lost coins like the hard drive in the land fill (6K there), plus a lot of people are holdhodling. The amount of bitcoins available on the market is far less than the 12 million in existence.

The coins that are for sale now are not on for the same price. At the time of writing, on Mt.Gox there is $30million worth of bitcoin available for sale. You will get BTC28400. The price would be pushed to up to $4500/BTC. Of course, you can do it across many exchanges, but to sink even with 50-60 million into bitcoins would either take a long time, and/or would push the price up noticeably, and you won't get 100K BTC

Accumulating a position of BTC1,000,000 without being noticed is nigh on impossible. It will take a long time, you will need a lot of cash because the cost will rise.

Thousands? May be, hence I voted yes. Even some investment companies are doing it. Hundreds of thousands? No.

Except for seizures, like TonyOliver said.

[empoweoqwj]

The US have a nice reserve, courtesy of the Silk Road shut down

[kuverty]

I don't think so, although I guess anything is possible. Recently a municipality in Finland wanted to invest some money in the national lottery (yes, playing lotto)... there was some discussion but it was, sadly, illegal to do that. I bet the people are happy to have such wise people in control of their tax money.
Well, that was off-topic but I wanted to share that with you anyway. Forgot that the US has now some BTC from the Silk Road, so I guess that's a partial "yes" to your question.

[beetcoin]

i was thinking something along the same lins.. considering that the U.S. has been printing $85 billion per month, if they could just throw maybe 1% of that for 1 year... that'd double the value of bitcoins.

[solex]

I really don't think governments will buy bitcoins until they cost $10k each. By then the writing will be on the wall for fiat systems, and they will want to hedge against a crypto future.

[TonyOliver]

Has the US managed to access the vast majority of the funds seized from the silk road? I heard that the FBI was holding 1.5% of all bitcoins in existence? Can anyone verify or debunk that?

[Lethn]

lol it's not 1.5% but it is a lot I thought it was something like 240,000 BTC from what I saw on articles, definitely a lot but the problem is they haven't been able to access most of it because the wallet is passworded.

[TonyOliver]

as there are 11 million bitcoins - and you suggest the FBI have 240,000 - that would make it 2.18% if my maths are correct.

[mprep]

as there are 11 million bitcoins - and you suggest the FBI have 240,000 - that would make it 2.18% if my maths are correct.

So I guess we can put USA to the list of countries secretly holding bitcoins as a reserve. Probably other, smaller countries are holding BTC as well.

[TonyOliver]

Germany is holding at least 1 million Euros in Bitcoin. I dont know of any other high profile seizures. Was there one in Ireland yesterday - a silk road 2 admin?? Anywho, most of these bitcoin funds will not be held by the treasuries of nationstates - they will be held by their respective spy agencies. It represents a great way for spy agencies to remain unaccountable to the citizens they are supposed to be protecting.

[Eri]

no way they have access to them. they can say they need to keep the bitcoins in the account for evidence. but the blockchain has the history and they have the servers. they have all the evidence they need. they wouldnt risk him being able to move them. If he remembered the private key he could tell it to the lawyer a few characters at a time... if he trusted him enough to move them.

so i call bs on the fbi having access to anything other then the hot wallet.

[empoweoqwj]

lol it's not 1.5% but it is a lot I thought it was something like 240,000 BTC from what I saw on articles, definitely a lot but the problem is they haven't been able to access most of it because the wallet is passworded.

lol - like the NSA have no idea how to crack passwords

[eyjgvfdhbshm]

When the government seizes computers holding a lot of coins and they have access to them, why wouldn't they use them? As long as the coins hold value, they can be used for anything that needs to be covert

[empoweoqwj]

When the government seizes computers holding a lot of coins and they have access to them, why wouldn't they use them? As long as the coins hold value, they can be used for anything that needs to be covert

Didn't the FBI say they were going to sell them off?

[eyjgvfdhbshm]

Do they tell the truth? 

[Eri]

lol it's not 1.5% but it is a lot I thought it was something like 240,000 BTC from what I saw on articles, definitely a lot but the problem is they haven't been able to access most of it because the wallet is passworded.

lol - like the NSA have no idea how to crack passwords

Yeah but your talking about his wallet with all his funds, the one he never needs the private key to access. if he had any idea of security he wouldnt have it with an easy password, let alone somewhere they could get the wallet file.

When the government seizes computers holding a lot of coins and they have access to them, why wouldn't they use them? As long as the coins hold value, they can be used for anything that needs to be covert

Didn't the FBI say they were going to sell them off?

They could sell the coins to themselves... secretly would be the epitome of stupidity if they sold them.

[smoothrunnings]

lol it's not 1.5% but it is a lot I thought it was something like 240,000 BTC from what I saw on articles, definitely a lot but the problem is they haven't been able to access most of it because the wallet is passworded.

lol - like the NSA have no idea how to crack passwords

If you have a password like this (https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm) it will take the NSA an infinite amount of time to crack it.

Enjoy!