Who will be the first country to own Bitcoin reserves and publicly display them?

[cellard]

Just like they are holding big amounts of gold and displaying amounts that I think may be approximate amounts:




Could we see this in the future? I think it's a matter of time. If a country starts accumulating a lot, at some point other countries will not be able to keep ignoring it, and I believe you can't ignore Bitcoin just like you couldn't ignore powder, you must be in. Most likely they hold some already but aren't disclosing it.

[amishmanish]

This is going to be tricky. Governments need compliance and regulation to exercise control and power. Recognizing bitcoin to this extent means loosening of that power over its own citizens. The biggest worry for developing countries at least is the implications on money laundering. As far as developed countries are concerned, their too the governments don't stand to gain anything by legitimizing bitcoin.

Japan and Korea seemed to be very accepting of Bitcoin, till the hacking drama with exchanges and involvement of officials. Now we have the regulators jumping in. The problem for the governments is recognizing its importance.

As much as we'd like this to happen, I doubt this is gonna happen in the near future. Then again, wouldn't people like the twins and entities like coinbase become too strong in their own right?  How would the lawmakers come to term with that?

[kakonhat]

According to the present time, Koria is doing great for the Bitcoin. But it could change anytime if the more powerful country will accept it as Gold.

[nebuch]

Interesting future between countries dominance in bitcoin. This ranking could lead us into conclusion that from top 20 countries there will have much more progressive than the other. Maybe USA win this category due to huge USA citizens. However, things change like ethereum and ripple ranking. So this matter is still on going.

[loopes]

Maybe Africa because their citizens really need bitcoin, although the infrastructures is not support bitcoin now but choose bitcoin for their transactions will be better because build bank building will not so appropriate for this country. Paper money is worthless there and the cost to manage paper money there will be very expensive. Bitcoin can help their citizens to do transactions. Honestly I don't think that any country will own Bitcoin as reserve currency, all country will still choose gold as reserve currency, and this happen since long time ago. Gold is better rather that USD and Bitcoin.

[cellard]

This is going to be tricky. Governments need compliance and regulation to exercise control and power. Recognizing bitcoin to this extent means loosening of that power over its own citizens. The biggest worry for developing countries at least is the implications on money laundering. As far as developed countries are concerned, their too the governments don't stand to gain anything by legitimizing bitcoin.

Japan and Korea seemed to be very accepting of Bitcoin, till the hacking drama with exchanges and involvement of officials. Now we have the regulators jumping in. The problem for the governments is recognizing its importance.

As much as we'd like this to happen, I doubt this is gonna happen in the near future. Then again, wouldn't people like the twins and entities like coinbase become too strong in their own right?  How would the lawmakers come to term with that?

But if X country starts using it, X country will start benefiting from clearing transactions saving a ton of money instead of clearing transactions in gold which is very expensive, and they will also benefit from seeing a mass exodus of bitcoiners that go there to pay taxes instead of being seen as criminals, meanwhile country Y is losing on all of these positives. It's again game theory similar to benefits of low taxes (all big companies go there to pay taxes).

If they control the exchanges and add KYC there shouldn't be too much money laundering happening. Most criminals don't eve use bitcoin because there are high chances of screwing up and getting caught, criminals are still using cash.

As far as Winklevoss brothers becoming too powerful... well, just like Zuckerberg became too powerful, it's how capitalism goes. Coinbase doesn't own all these coins they are holding, they just make money on fees.

[amishmanish]

But if X country starts using it, X country will start benefiting from clearing transactions saving a ton of money instead of clearing transactions in gold which is very expensive, and they will also benefit from seeing a mass exodus of bitcoiners that go there to pay taxes instead of being seen as criminals, meanwhile country Y is losing on all of these positives. It's again game theory similar to benefits of low taxes (all big companies go there to pay taxes).

Well, if whole governments start getting on the FOMO bandwagon then a lot of people here would be very happy campers for all the days to come. Still, I feel that the first country to set the ball rolling is the tough part. I am probably not understanding your line of thought but the adoption of bitcoin as a inter bank clearing mechanism will itself need adoption by everybody else first, right?
 
Most developing countries have very conservative central banks and regulation. That is the perspective I am familiar with and I don't see it happening there. For major, high-volume economies like US, Japan; this is too much of a risk. What we can expect is for the smaller, more agile countries taking the lead. The tax-haven and financial services variety like Liechtenstein, Malta, probably Mauritius. As these tiny countries kickstart some sort of adoption, there maybe the FOMO you mentioned will come into play.

Got to get re-acquainted with the news of regulatory authorities in Korea, Japan etc. There was a thread started by Hydrogen i guess to keep a tab of the number of countries favorable and non-favorable to bitcoin.

[HODL2090]

A number of countries are becoming very cryptocurrency friendly and some engaging in active regulations, but I do not think any in the near future would buy, store and publicly declare to have bitcoins in it's reserves.

And this would take a chunk of bitcoins out of circulation.
Governments seem to have more interest on the blockchain technology.

[3acaga]

Storing bitcoins on the state’s balance sheet is still a very risky idea.
This is not the gold that lies in the safe under protection, the government should be very confident that the hacker will not be able to steal the bitcoins from the state.
And the second point why the states do not want to recognize an independent currency - is it a loss of control over the taxes of the population, where will the funds for social costs come from?

[avikz]

This is not going to be easy. Gold is globally acclaimed metal that was initially used as the main reserve for all countries to back up the value for their currencies. Bitcoin on the other hand, are not legal in many countries and banned in some. So no country will be interested even in hoarding up bitcoins at their coffers.

Also the second challenge is the decentralized nature of bitcoin. A country would not want any such financial asset to become so important which doesn't have a controlling authority. The world runs on the idea of strict centralization. It would take a drastic overhaul in our current economy before bitcoin or any other cryptos are eligible to be added to any country's reserve. So that's not going to happen anytime soon!

But if it ever happens, I believe Japan is going to be the first country to do that! Because they were the first country to legalize it !

[mu_enrico]

To replace gold? I don't think gold is replaceable. However, it is possible to include bitcoin as a foreign currency. Usually, government reserves have more than one type of currency, for example, EUR, USD, CHY, to minimize risk.

I expect BTC will be used by the government to diversify their "cash-equivalent" portfolio in the near future.

[Dirk2017]

Well, i think it will be the USA too as Bitcoin value is depending on US dollar and the US dollar also fully recognized it as the center of crypto to fiat exchange. That in fact the whole wide country are fully using Bitcoin as an alternative currency for invesrments, direct spending and payments.

[BitHodler]

Usually, government reserves have more than one type of currency, for example, EUR, USD, CHY, to minimize risk.

I expect BTC will be used by the government to diversify their "cash-equivalent" portfolio in the near future.

Diversification is useful if you own a little bit of something that isn't the same as what you already own. If your portfolio consists of EUR, USD, JPY, that's not diversification, but a bag full of similar promises doomed to fail.

I'm not sure how long it will take for governments to load up on Bitcoin, but it will happen eventually, especially when they acknowledge how flawed their own system is. Them loading up on gold happens for a reason.

You don't load up on gold if you are confident in your own system and that what's playing outside of it. Russia and China have been the largest hoarders of gold in the last couple of years, is that a surprise? Definitely not for me.

[Pab]

Any maybe some private country
Gold is tradition with ages of history
Gold is not only virtual so you can't compere gold with bitcoin
Countries are holding physical gold virtual is traded and manipulated
If virtual gold trading will be taken off than price of gold will be much higher than now

[cellard]

This is not going to be easy. Gold is globally acclaimed metal that was initially used as the main reserve for all countries to back up the value for their currencies. Bitcoin on the other hand, are not legal in many countries and banned in some. So no country will be interested even in hoarding up bitcoins at their coffers.

Also the second challenge is the decentralized nature of bitcoin. A country would not want any such financial asset to become so important which doesn't have a controlling authority. The world runs on the idea of strict centralization. It would take a drastic overhaul in our current economy before bitcoin or any other cryptos are eligible to be added to any country's reserve. So that's not going to happen anytime soon!

But if it ever happens, I believe Japan is going to be the first country to do that! Because they were the first country to legalize it !

Gold was banned even on the United States too at some point:



Bans don't matter, it's fundamentals that matter. As long as Bitcoin has good fundamentals (it's properties being better than any other type of money) then wherever there is a ban on Bitcoin, some other state benefits by being Bitcoin-friendly.

If a country bans BTC, some other will benefit from holders paying taxes there, investing on real state and so on with BTC, mining it, saving a lot of money by clearing transactions with BTC instead of with gold... those that ban it must consider if it's worth it.

[eminemcookie]

I'm not sure we'll ever see this happening. Bitcoin would not to be as reliable as gold which would require a large demand from the public for one reason or another. That demand is different to gold because it would likely involve spending instead of just jewelry etc. That being said, I would suspect the most likely would be a country like Japan due to their acceptance already or perhaps Switzerland given their forward thinking when it comes to finance.

[1Referee]

That time will come. Gold has very little utility in current times, yet a gigantic market cap. Bitcoin has plenty of utility, yet a joke of a market cap.

Bitcoin picks up where Gold just couldn't serve up to its promise, and here we are. People talk down on Bitcoin for being a horrible store of value because of this year's correction, but in the same way that applies to Gold. Gold in 2011 peaked at $1900 and is currently hovering around $1220 which means that it's not a good store of value at all by that logic, but yet people think it is. 

We'll know when governments start to stack up their coins once they stop auctioning off their seized Bitcoins. It didn't work out well with the SilkRoad coins looking back now, I'm sure they realize that.

[el kaka22]

Just like they are holding big amounts of gold and displaying amounts that I think may be approximate amounts:

[im g]https://i.ibb.co/Qn3QT8L/gold-holdings.png[/img]


Could we see this in the future? I think it's a matter of time. If a country starts accumulating a lot, at some point other countries will not be able to keep ignoring it, and I believe you can't ignore Bitcoin just like you couldn't ignore powder, you must be in. Most likely they hold some already but aren't disclosing it.

I do not think you need a big prediction wizard to know which one it will be.
USA will be the clear choice here when it comes to reserves (don't know what will happen about the publicly part). They have been the first country to regulate bitcoin properly and actually tax the profits of people who have been profiting from bitcoin and they had to pay taxes for their trades and all that so there is already an established network for IRS to tax people. They have been the first country that is considering an ETF and securities for something like crypto and they will be hopefully starting out doing that next month. They are the first country where you can pay your taxes in bitcoin (not that they will hold those bitcoin).

All of those and more came from USA so I wouldn't be shocked if they were the first country with bitcoin reserves.

[MULTIK888]

In order for this to happen, I think it takes a lot of time, because today the price of bitcoin is still very volatile!. The leading countries of the world cannot risk their funds to buy and hold bitcoin.
On top of all, as we know so far there is no regulation in this market, which also will not allow countries to hold bitcoins.
If all the same we think that this will happen I primarily put on Korea, China and Japan!!

[Dimon8]

I think the US is out of competition. All global financial regulators are located in the United States, and they want to have control over financial flows in the future as they do now.