In March an executive order directed America's treasury secretary to create two stockpiles of crypto assets (to accompany already-existing "strategic reserves" of gold and foreign currencies). And the Washington Post notes these new stockpiles would include "cryptocurrency seized by federal agencies in criminal or civil proceedings." But how big would America's "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" be — and what other cryptocurrencies would the U.S. government hold in its "Digital Asset Stockpile"?
"New data on what crypto cash the U.S. government has seized may now provide some answers.
It suggests the crypto reserves will together hold more than $21 billion in cryptocurrency... The stockpile will be funded with whatever crypto assets the Treasury holds other than bitcoin, leaving the stockpile's composition to be largely determined by a mixture of chance and criminal conduct. That unconventional method for selecting government financial holdings had the benefit of making the reserves cost-neutral for the taxpayer.
It also provided a way to estimate what exactly might go into the two pools before results are released from an official accounting of U.S. crypto holdings that is underway.Because government seizures are disclosed in court documents, news releases and other sources, crypto-tracking firms can use those notices to monitor which digital assets the U.S. government holds. Chainalysis, a blockchain analytics firm, reviewed cryptocurrency wallets that appear to be associated with the U.S. government for The Washington Post. The company estimated how much bitcoin it holds, and the other crypto tokens in its top 20 digital holdings as of May 13, by tracking transactions involving those wallets.
The United States' top 20 crypto holdings according to Chainalysis are worth about $20.9 billion as of 3 p.m. Eastern on May 28, with $20.4 billion in bitcoin and about $493 million in other digital assets. It has been scooped up from crimes such as stolen funds, scams and sales on dark net markets. Those estimates put the U.S. government's top crypto holdings at less than the approximately $25 billion worth of oil held in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Their value is nearly double the Fed's listing for U.S. gold holdings, although that figure uses outdated pricing and would be over $850 billion at current prices...
The crypto tokens headed for the U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile according to the Chainalysis list include ethereum, the world's second-largest digital asset, and a string of other crypto tokens with punier name recognition. They include derivatives of bitcoin and ethereum that mirror those cryptocurrencies' prices, several stable coins designed to be pegged in value to the U.S. dollar, and 10 tokens tied to specific companies, including the cryptocurrency exchanges FTX, which imploded in 2022 after defrauding customers, and Binance.
Two U.S. states have already passed legislation creating their own cryptocurrency reserve funds, the article points out. But ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin complained to the Post in March that crypto's "original spirit...is about counterbalancing power" — including government and corporate power, and getting too close to "one particular government team" could conflict with its mission of decentralization and openness. And he's not the only one concerned:
Austin Campbell, a professor at New York University's business school and a principal at crypto advisory firm Zero Knowledge, sees hypocrisy in crypto enthusiasts cheering the government's strategic reserves. The bitcoin community in particular "has historically been about freedom from sovereign interference," he said.
Abstract credit: https://slashdot.org/story/442693
