President Donald Trump wants to make his country a “bidcoin superpower,” but the question remains as to who he is competing with.
Speaking to a crowd of crypto industry executives and observers at Blockwork’s Digital Assets Summit on March 20th, he said:
The US crypto industry has benefited greatly from priority executive orders from Trump’s White House, including the establishment of a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.”
However, many other countries, including major US trading partners, are not ready to undertake Bitcoin as a reserve asset, begging for the question of who the US is competing to become a “bitcoin superpower.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dyench-2is
US allies, trading partners and rivals are not competing in Bitcoin
Compared to its major trading partners and geopolitical rivals, the US certainly outperforms the game when it comes to adopting Bitcoin. Neither the European Union, China, Mexico or Canada have taken such drastic steps towards institutionalizing assets.
China, the US’s biggest trading partner and most prominent geopolitical opponent, has a strong stance on assets, banning it entirely before mitigating its approach slightly. China currently allows mining operations, but strictly prohibits the use of Bitcoin.
Overall, the government prefers to focus efforts on developing digital currency for retail central banks in the form of digital Originals.
Another major US trading partner, the European Union, passed the market in May 2023 under the Crypto-Assets regulatory framework and was fully implemented by member states at the end of 2024.
The EU is ahead of the US in terms of passing specific laws, but offers the industry much more priority than what is expected in the parallel US laws currently circulating in Congress.
The penetration of crypto users in the EU is expected to remain inherently stagnant this year, with cryptocurrency generally declining among the union’s richest economies. Member countries do not have Bitcoin sanctuaries.
Even crypto-friendly Switzerland, which saw $52.4 billion in US services exports in 2024, has limited crypto approval and adoption. On March 1, Swiss National Bank President Martin Schregel said Bitcoin is not a suitable reserve asset, citing stability, liquidity concerns and security risks.
German central bank Joachim Nagel also rejected the idea of ​​a reserve for Bitcoin, but Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney previously criticized Bitcoin as a poor form of money.
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South Korea does not feel ready to hold Bitcoin as a reserve asset. The Bank of Korea says the BTC is unstable and does not meet the International Monetary Fund standards.
Russia has allowed the use of code in international settlements to avoid sanctions. The central bank is also preparing a three-year experiment to enable selected investors to trade crypto. Some jurists across the country have proposed establishing a crypto fund consisting of assets seized in criminal cases, but the territory has not yet formed one.
Critics and supporters Lambust “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve”
Critics have questioned the strategic value of the US Bitcoin Reserve and who will benefit in the long run.
“This is not a strategic, sensible idea or a sensible idea, but instead it benefits Bitcoin holders, sticks to US taxpayers and puts the government at financial risk,” said Eswar Prasad, a professor of economics at Cornell.
As TLDR News noted, the key to most strategic reserves is to stock products that are deemed extremely important to the functioning of the country’s economy. The government can also create them to stabilize the prices of high-demand goods. The US has strategic oil and grain reserves, while China even has strategic pork reserves.
Bitcoin’s strategic reserves do neither of these because there is no significant demand among Americans for Bitcoin and Bitcoiners don’t want to stabilize prices.
George Selgin, senior fellow and director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Financial and Financial Alternatives, said the reserve goal of helping to repay US government bonds is unrealistic.
“The stash of one million coins in a plan needs to be more than doubled in value during the 20-year holding period just to compensate for the implicit interest costs of the plan. Secondly, the stockpile must be sold to ultimately realize the profits.
The claim to function as a Digital Fort Knox claims that he is “suspectful” because Richard Nixon was president, robbed the dollar from the gold standard, and the gold contained there does not support the value of the dollar.
Even Bitcoiner removed a crack in the reserve. Charles Edwards, founder of Capriol Invest, a hedge fund for Bitcoin and digital assets, criticized the reserve’s “hold-only” policy, calling it “disappointing” and “lipstick pigs.”
Source: Charles Edwards
The reserve has even proven to be something of a non-starter in Bitcoin prices after Trump signed the executive order on March 6th.
As it stands, the US is leading a race where no one else runs. But things can change soon. Right-wing parties sympathetic to creating Bitcoin reserves are on the rise in European elections.
Brazil, the major economy in the Western Hemisphere, is also evaluating the potential for Bitcoin reserves.
Additionally, the US Bitcoin Reserve will allow the Treasury to purchase Bitcoin as much as possible in a budget-neutral way that is free from taxpayers’ costs. The full effect of the reserve and its impact on Bitcoin adoption may still be felt.
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