Why don't US gov buy a trillion worth of bitcoin?

[hatshepsut93]

We all know the US gov rules, dictate to rest of the world.
So if they cornered the btc market, afterwards the btc price could only go up, factor with this  a few btc friendly directives, and a massive coup would have been achieved.
What is the downside?

First, the US doesn't rule the world, it tries to influence things, but ultimately countries still do whatever they want.

Second, it's the same reason why it's risky for anyone to pump a huge amount of money into BTC - sudden surge will trigger massive selling and the price will end up lower. If they would buy, it will be with smaller amount over longer periods of time, on OTC markets.

Third, it's still risky for anyone - they can pump billions into BTC and if it will fail they'll lose it all. Governments don't like to gamble with risky investments, they prefer stable returns from something like loans. If any government will buy Bitcoin, it will only be in small amounts.

Fourth, buying a lot of Bitcoins won't give you any special power over the network, and no one can buy all Bitcoins in existence. It's a stupid idea that no one in the government even thinks about.

[krb91]

Uncle Sam is one of the major holders of BTC. During the operation that led to the end of the first silk road which led to the arrest of Dread Pirate Roberts, thousands of BTC was confiscated. This is just one of the numerous BTC stash that they have acquired illegally. Also major players in the government are crypto-friendly, they just haven't passed laws to recognize crypto as a legitimate medium if exchange.

[Oilacris]

We all know the US gov rules, dictate to rest of the world.
So if they cornered the btc market, afterwards the btc price could only go up, factor with this  a few btc friendly directives, and a massive coup would have been achieved.
What is the downside?

US is a super power but doesnt mean that they dictate the rest of the world but we cant deny on how powerful this country is.

When it comes to the topic saying on buying a trillion worth of bitcoin,yes its possible but would they consider on proceeding if they do know the potential
risk lies ahead? For sure they arent dumb to make such move.

[whtchocla7e]

The US government is concerned about security by terrorism, money laundering crimes. With BTC, criminals perform money laundering and buy weapons more conveniently and safely. Or maybe the government has stored for itself a huge amount of BTC that no one knows. I think the US cannot ignore the huge profits and potentials from the digital currency, which will be drastic changes in human history.

[ElmedoRator]

Maybe they don't want to make this public. The US government is a big country in the world, I think they cannot ignore the lucrative piece of bitcoin. Who knows how many bitcoin they hold. However, they have not been able to accept it because security concerns about weapons laundering crimes will occur regularly.

[bryant.coleman]

We all know the US gov rules, dictate to rest of the world.
So if they cornered the btc market, afterwards the btc price could only go up, factor with this  a few btc friendly directives, and a massive coup would have been achieved.
What is the downside?

They don't need to do that. The United States Dollar is the reserve currency of the world. Right now Bitcoin has the potential to overtake USD in this regard (although not in near future). So it is not in the best interest of the United States to give any sort of boost to Bitcoin, by spiking the exchange rates and acceptability. A large part of the influence that US wields in the world comes from the status of the USD as the trade / reserve currency. If Bitcoin takes over this role, then it is going to be detrimental to the interests of the American government. On the other hand, the government will try to protect the national currency, by attempting to limit the adoption and acceptability of decentralized cryptocurrencies.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

We all know the US gov rules, dictate to rest of the world.
So if they cornered the btc market, afterwards the btc price could only go up, factor with this  a few btc friendly directives, and a massive coup would have been achieved.
What is the downside?

You got the answer from the Donald Trump tweet yesterday. he just represented that the government would not support it and it said Bitcoin be used for drug transactions? and used for illegal transaction ? even though it was too old news and the news was not fully correct but that statement could make bitcoin look bad again. even myself was disappointed to find out that weet. its written in the president's account read all over the world.

[slaman29]

Uncle Sam is one of the major holders of BTC. During the operation that led to the end of the first silk road which led to the arrest of Dread Pirate Roberts, thousands of BTC was confiscated. This is just one of the numerous BTC stash that they have acquired illegally. Also major players in the government are crypto-friendly, they just haven't passed laws to recognize crypto as a legitimate medium if exchange.

But those thousands of BTC were also auctioned off, and until today you can find a few of those people bidding (and who won) who are active in Bitcoin. So uncle sam only got money from it, not BTC. Those who got it they won it cheap, so they are the real lucky ones. If I'm not mistaken Roger Ver is one of them.

[Lalafell]

We all know the US gov rules, dictate to rest of the world.
So if they cornered the btc market, afterwards the btc price could only go up, factor with this  a few btc friendly directives, and a massive coup would have been achieved.
What is the downside?

United State doesn't rule the world, it tries to influence things, but ultimately countries still do whatever they want. The government of the United State is concerned about security by terrorism, money laundering crimes. With bitcoin, criminals perform money laundering and buy weapons more conveniently and safely on in the black market which is hard to determined by the governmentt. Buying a billion worth of Bitcoins won't give you any power over the network or rule the world.

[alexsandria]

I mean why will they do that? Knowing USA is a democratic country. Also, they do not want to lose too much reserves because this is what big countries do. They don't want to lose that much reserves. And I mean, if you know the nature of bitcoin then you will also know why.

[veleten]

We all know the US gov rules, dictate to rest of the world.
So if they cornered the btc market, afterwards the btc price could only go up, factor with this  a few btc friendly directives, and a massive coup would have been achieved.
What is the downside?

US government no longer rules or dictates to the rest of the world
the times of one polar world has come to an end , lets see how the US dictate something to Iran or North Korea , not even talking about Russia or China here
they do not need to buy btc , they have a much better toy - FRS and Central banks ( well technically, Central banks are a thing on their own rather than the US government creation)
who needs bitcoins when they can print as mach money as they want , the problem is not in the money per se , the problem is to "sell" your money for resources
it is harder and harder for the US and thats why Trump is re-opening the industries and returning the businesses from abroad
they can't milk the rest of the world as much as they have been doing it after the USSR collapse

[Lauren Smith]

Maybe Trump is actually playing us and totally supports bitcoin and his ass is sitting on a huge heap of coins. Would be ironic wouldn't it?

We all know the US gov rules, dictate to rest of the world.
So if they cornered the btc market, afterwards the btc price could only go up, factor with this  a few btc friendly directives, and a massive coup would have been achieved.
What is the downside?

US government no longer rules or dictates to the rest of the world
the times of one polar world has come to an end , lets see how the US dictate something to Iran or North Korea , not even talking about Russia or China here
they do not need to buy btc , they have a much better toy - FRS and Central banks ( well technically, Central banks are a thing on their own rather than the US government creation)
who needs bitcoins when they can print as mach money as they want , the problem is not in the money per se , the problem is to "sell" your money for resources
it is harder and harder for the US and thats why Trump is re-opening the industries and returning the businesses from abroad
they can't milk the rest of the world as much as they have been doing it after the USSR collapse

Thank goodness for that. The USA government has been known to make stupid rules and laws that were not based on the needs of the people but rather the needs of the government or the need to justify something since it is used for war much like some drugs were used on the troops.

[Kyraishi]

Well, it's probably one of the riskiest investments they could ever make, and they might just believe in their ow US dollar so much they don't need to. There have been theories, however, that the US government holds quite a lot of BTC from hacker funds they've recovered though.

I don't think they'd have enough money to buy 1 trillion worth of BTC as well, some of their spendings are in the low billions area and BTC is way too risky for them to put that much money in it.

Military: 600 Billion
Social Security, Unemployment & Labour: 1,200 Billion
Medicare & Health: 1,050 Billion

[BADecker]

The more they buy, the higher the price will go. Soon they will have driven the price so high that a bunch of cheap Bitcoin tramps who happened to buy in, in 2010 and 2011 will be the new mega-rich people of the world.

[Murat]

I don't think so, Who knows what's going on the behind of the scenario, Everything is possible to them, Not only the USA government but also other developed countries may have taken some steps regarding this issues but we are not able to know this fact. The US government is very concern about the all existing matter in the current context, they are really aware of this Bitcoin mechanism and they are always thinking about any matter before we think it. Since they are trying to dominate on this planet by hook or by crook so they may also a close observation of this blockchain system especially on the Bitcoin. but in front of the public, they are not trying to trigger it out and they are trying to ignore this issue very cleverly.

[Wexnident]

We all know the US gov rules, dictate to rest of the world.
So if they cornered the btc market, afterwards the btc price could only go up, factor with this  a few btc friendly directives, and a massive coup would have been achieved.
What is the downside?

By buying a huge amount of bitcoin, they would be forced to partake in the community since owning bitcoin doesn't really help in the other natters that they manage. Besides, wasting a million, billion dollars on something you wouldn't get profit for isn't really that of a good thing. By controlling majority of the market, they wouldn't really profit cause everyone by then would know that someone is manipulating it in a huge/large scale.

[Shasha80]

A very good question, I will answer according to my capacity as an ordinary person. So maybe the answer is lacking
satisfying. But everyone is free to express an opinion, in my opinion the US government may have bought bitcoin and altcoin.
But not in large quantities and carried out in secret. As we know about them, they are very obsessed with being a country
superpower .So from Bitcoin is a major breakthrough in the world of technology that is quite interesting for them to learn it.
US Government buys bitcoin not to enjoy its main purpose profit, but rather to research bitcoin itself.
And I'm very confident that the US Government has the best technology experts who can provide input on the issue of bitcoin.

[Zeke_23]

A very good question, I will answer according to my capacity as an ordinary person. So maybe the answer is lacking
satisfying. But everyone is free to express an opinion, in my opinion the US government may have bought bitcoin and altcoin.
But not in large quantities and carried out in secret. As we know about them, they are very obsessed with being a country
superpower .So from Bitcoin is a major breakthrough in the world of technology that is quite interesting for them to learn it.
US Government buys bitcoin not to enjoy its main purpose profit, but rather to research bitcoin itself.
And I'm very confident that the US Government has the best technology experts who can provide input on the issue of bitcoin.

For now, government of the US is still studying everything about bitcoin including the flaws of it. We guarantee that they will take action few months from now, government are taking control with fiat currencies, and bitcoin is also a currency which they wont let passed, that's why they will move once they have a solution for the negative sides of bitcoin.

[Eclipse26]

Because if they would do that, it's like they're going against on what they're saying. Just recently when Trump said something against cryptoccurency and how it could just cause criminal activities. Meaning, he doesn't support crypto so basically the government wouldn't buy bitcoin.

Imagine saying a lot of things against crypto yet you're one of those who buy bitcoin as well. They don't even promote crypto because obviously they're for fiat, the one they can control.

If the government will buy trillion worth of btc, it's like they're showing to everyone the worth of btc.

[bryant.coleman]

We all know the US gov rules, dictate to rest of the world.
So if they cornered the btc market, afterwards the btc price could only go up, factor with this  a few btc friendly directives, and a massive coup would have been achieved.
What is the downside?

Very funny. Why do they need to spend this huge amount to purchase Bitcoins? How it is going to benefit the United States government, if they purchase an asset which poses a direct competition to the dominance of their own currency (the USD)? The US government is short of funds and that's why they sell their treasury bonds every year. The federal debt as of now stands at $20 trillion. Will they ever be stupid enough to add that debt by another one trillion? I really doubt that.

And BTW, the market capitalization of Bitcoin stands at $147 billion right now, and this includes the "lost coins". So it may not be even possible to spend $1 trillion on Bitcoin. I don't think that given the market liquidity, it will be even possible to purchase more than $1 billion worth of BTC every day.