Shower thought. If nations/states/governments are accumulating Bitcoin, then

[imstillthebest]

it depends if they or one of thier members know about bitcoin or as long as they are interested , they will surely invest on it  .

they can keep it as a secret or not but what will be the benefits that they can get if they will publically announced that they are involved into bitcoin ? maybe they think others will follow and others will also invest which result for the value of bitcoin to increase and thats the time that they get the benefit because they can sell thier btc at a higher rate .

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[Wind_FURY]

Shower thought. Governments are at an advantage if they decide to build their own mining farms because they can mine at cost/at loss, the people are taxed to subsidize it.

https://twitter.com/bloqport/status/1263594019545706498

BREAKING: Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, calls on government to form a national crypto mining strategy.

[pakhitheboss]

I believe they must be doing it in secret. What would be the advantage for North Korea, or Iran, to let everyone know that they are accumulating/mining/HODLING?

Why would government of countries do that? When they know they can print their local currency whenever they want. Bitcoin is still not a global currency. Countries like North Korea and Iran do. It need Bitcoin but USD. They have been secretly accumulating USD by unfair means.

Bitcoin is the currency for common man to break the shackles of centralisation and save his savings. It is a currency of the Internet and countries do not operate only on internet.

[pixie85]

If they are buying they must be doing it in a very low quantity because the price isn't moving like it would if institutions were moving in.

You should understand that 100 million dollars for a country is like nothing. They can snap a finger and buy that in bulk right now but we don't see 100 million purchases often.

Maybe they are doing it over a long period of time but why would they play around like this if it's such small money for them?

[franky1]

think its time windfury changes his soap

anyway shower thought
why do governments even nee to spend money buying coin/ mining coin,
they just got to declare a mining farm as 'stealing electric from the grid' and take the equipment/coins
they just got to declare a exchange as an illegal operation and take the coin

it didnt cost much to grab silk road funds. nor some now defunct exchange funds.
there is supposedly 500k coins still locked up in MTGox keys too..

all grabbed without a single asic purchased or government fiat -> exchange purchase

[FlightyPouch]

In the past, there are a lot of articles, news, some theories that North Korea is actually saving money, hacking, plotting heists and if you actually watched the video of Kento Bento about the North Korean Heist, well, I just learned it there the first time. If they will be turning to bitcoin, then I guess they wanted to control. They are planing something and gaining money is the start of it.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2019/08/07/north-korean-hackers-2-billion-heist-is-funding-wmd-programs/#702b5b0038fb
https://www.ft.com/content/cbb28ab8-8ce9-11e9-a24d-b42f641eca37
forbes.com/sites/leemathews/2019/03/11/north-korean-hackers-have-raked-in-670-million-via-cyberattacks/#55bbb7947018
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/01/politics/north-korea-cyberattacks-cash-bank-heists/index.html

[malevolent]

Shower thought. Governments are at an advantage if they decide to build their own mining farms because they can mine at cost/at loss, the people are taxed to subsidize it.

https://twitter.com/bloqport/status/1263594019545706498

BREAKING: Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, calls on government to form a national crypto mining strategy.

Not necessarily, Iran has one of the lowest electricity prices in the world even without subsidies.

https://financialtribune.com/articles/energy/97278/rise-in-electricity-and-water-tariffs-in-iran

anyway shower thought
why do governments even nee to spend money buying coin/ mining coin,
they just got to declare a mining farm as 'stealing electric from the grid' and take the equipment/coins
they just got to declare a exchange as an illegal operation and take the coin

That's what Venezuelan authorities have been doing for a couple years already.

Iran too: https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/30/20635616/iran-bitcoin-computers-seized-energy-consumption but that one was about illegally using subsidized electricity afaik

[TheCoinGrabber]

I believe they must be doing it in secret. What would be the advantage for North Korea, or Iran, to let everyone know that they are accumulating/mining/HODLING?

In the case of those 2 countries you mentioned, publicizing it would be the last thing they'd do. It could negatively impact bitcoin's reputation which might drive down price in meantime. And it could also make them target for cyberattacks to try to disable their hoarding attempts.

[Botnake]

It's hard to say they are holding because as a government, they should be transparent on how they will manage the wealth of the nation.
Also, it's kinda odd that a government who like a centralized policy investing in a decentralized system, if they would like bitcoin to be a success in the future, then they should be legalizing everything to give way on improvement of the adoption process.

Bitcoin has always been an speculative asset, being a store of value is sometimes makes people doubtful due to its price volatility.

[Wind_FURY]

think its time windfury changes his soap

anyway shower thought
why do governments even nee to spend money buying coin/ mining coin,

I don't know frenkie. It's Iran's president calling for a crypto mining strategy.

Maybe he believes they need censorship-resistance, and Bitcoin is that path to go around trade sanctions by the U.S.

Maybe he believes the Bitcoin protocol is useful for prevention of asset seizure.

Or maybe, he believes it's important to help secure the network that could give them those properties they need.

Maybe they also want to trade heroin. I don't know.

[kryptqnick]

I think it's a real possibility. Bitcoin can be useful for making unofficial but important transactions. It's also useful to cut back on international transfer fees, especially if we're talking about a big sum of money. Some might also slowly accumulate BTC in a hope that they might eventually take over the control by owning a huge percentage. It can also be an investment option just in case your economy collapses. There've been multiple countries which have been caught doing stuff with BTC, so I think it's true that they do that. In my country, there've been serious talks with the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources offered nuclear power plants to make crypto mining facilities to make sure the energy they are making has a place to be directed to. The head of the Ministry called it a worldwide trend (see here, but it's in Ukrainian).
However, I don't think the scope of all these actions truly threatens the decentralization of Bitcoin.

[ranochigo]

It's hard to say they are holding because as a government, they should be transparent on how they will manage the wealth of the nation.
Also, it's kinda odd that a government who like a centralized policy investing in a decentralized system, if they would like bitcoin to be a success in the future, then they should be legalizing everything to give way on improvement of the adoption process.

Bitcoin has always been an speculative asset, being a store of value is sometimes makes people doubtful due to its price volatility.

They don't. A lot of the governments around the world do not disclose about the things that they invest in as it concerns national security. Let's treat crypto as a reserve currency. If governments disclose the amount of reserve that they have, it could have detrimental effects since outsiders would know exactly how much they have.

Governments like North Korea could potentially be using cryptos as a way to circumvent international sanctions and disclosing it would only make the world impose harsher sanctions.

[Janation]

Based from the news that says North Korea supporting cyber groups so they could earn money, I guess they are.

There are a lot of talks about North Korea planning heists all over the world to accumulate the money they might use to improve or develop their military forces. Some government officials are obviously thinking about this but they can't really do nothing since right now, most of them are more busy dealing with the current pandemic.

[Yogee]

I doubt any country would accumulate and hold bitcoin for a long time. They would rather develop their own digital currency and that's what we are seeing now from countries like China. They even made a proposal recently to issue a regional stable coin that will be backed by four major currencies in Asia. 

For Iran's case, they are already taxing the miners. That's probably better than getting involved with bitcoin.
For North Korea, they are reportedly connected with hackers attacking crypto exchanges. I don't think they want to declare they own bitcoins.

It's hard to say they are holding because as a government, they should be transparent on how they will manage the wealth of the nation.
Also, it's kinda odd that a government who like a centralized policy investing in a decentralized system, if they would like bitcoin to be a success in the future, then they should be legalizing everything to give way on improvement of the adoption process.

Bitcoin has always been an speculative asset, being a store of value is sometimes makes people doubtful due to its price volatility.

I bet there are government controlled banks who are already buying and selling bitcoin. They don't have to use bitcoin as a currency but they can still invest in it the same way they use depositor's funds to invest in real properties and stock market.

[nicecrypto]

I believe they must be doing it in secret. What would be the advantage for North Korea, or Iran, to let everyone know that they are accumulating/mining/HODLING?

I don't think they are, if they are really accumulating btc why is it not reflecting on price! Do you know what it means for states/government to accumulate btc,  it would mean huge money is coming in, which will also mean price hike is inevitable, at least there will be signs that certain top personnels or organisation are buying,
But if they are, the advantage will be in their profit, what else can it be, more money more power.

[coolcoinz]

They could be buying or mining, but if they did it openly, it might cause the whole thing to backfire due two the following things:
1. The people would see it as a weakness. Maybe the government doesn't truss the fiat it's printing, maybe the inflation is higher than they're telling us? The news of the hovernment buying Bitcoin might cause a bank run and destabilize the country.
2. The news could cause another bitcoin bubble, making it unable for the country to continue the strategy. They might want a bubble to happen eventually, but first they need to buy/mine enough and buying enough is difficult and time consuming when you want to stay under the radar.

[franky1]

think its time windfury changes his soap

anyway shower thought
why do governments even nee to spend money buying coin/ mining coin,

I don't know frenkie. It's Iran's president calling for a crypto mining strategy.

Maybe he believes they need censorship-resistance, and Bitcoin is that path to go around trade sanctions by the U.S.

Maybe he believes the Bitcoin protocol is useful for prevention of asset seizure.

Or maybe, he believes it's important to help secure the network that could give them those properties they need.

Maybe they also want to trade heroin. I don't know.

maybe its nothing to do with bitcoin at all.. and instead a newly created Iranian national currency of its own

[Wind_FURY]

think its time windfury changes his soap

anyway shower thought
why do governments even nee to spend money buying coin/ mining coin,

I don't know frenkie. It's Iran's president calling for a crypto mining strategy.

Maybe he believes they need censorship-resistance, and Bitcoin is that path to go around trade sanctions by the U.S.

Maybe he believes the Bitcoin protocol is useful for prevention of asset seizure.

Or maybe, he believes it's important to help secure the network that could give them those properties they need.

Maybe they also want to trade heroin. I don't know.

maybe its nothing to do with bitcoin at all.. and instead a newly created Iranian national currency of its own

Then that would be a mistake, a waste of resources, and very stupid in my opinion. They would be mining a shitcoin, that literally no one cares about.

[franky1]

not some random coin. but a national coin that has beenput into legislature as the national currency. thus instantly making it relevant to its citizens

also mining is not for profit dependant on hashpower/coin per block. it doesnt matter if a coin owner mines 50 coins a block or 5000 coins a block.
it does not matter how many asics are used.

if a national government puts a value that 0.00001 coin = minimum wage labour hour
and they have the coin as a DLT (distributed ledger tech) where the mining aspect is centralised to government banks. and the ledger is then publicly distributed.
then the banks dont need to play the fighting competition for blocks.

meaning normal users/outsiders cant mine. but they have access to make transactions and verify.
and the banks by law instantly would have coins valued at 100,000man hours a coin. even without having to put in alot of asic hardware

[Wind_FURY]

not some random coin. but a national coin that has beenput into legislature as the national currency. thus instantly making it relevant to its citizens

 

Hahaha. BUT useless outside their country to go around sanctions, and censorship-resistance. What's the point?

It's just going to be another shitcoin in my opinion. A shitcoin that no one would use, because, well, why would anyone accept it? It's a shitcoin, worse than Dogecoin. Bitcoin is already self-boot-strapped, with the most liquid market, and ready worldwide.

I believe you underestimate Bitcoin's network-effects, frenkie.