Instead of a Bitcoin Reserve, Trump Should Talk a Gold Standard
Bitcoiners are salivating at the idea of the Trump administration pumping their holdings by declaring a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” where the government pledges to hold onto its current stash or, in another version, start buying more bitcoin and using it to pay down the debt.
But the only reason bitcoin keeps going up is because there are more fools jumping in to speculate. And with the crypto guys in Trump’s ear, he’s talking about a reserve of “cryptos” – not the bitcoin-only stash that hardline bitcoiners hoped for. Even Michael Saylor, one of the biggest advocates and beneficiaries of the bitcoin speculation bubble, is saying “crypto” instead of bitcoin now, despite railing against the other coins in interviews. And Cynthia Lummis, the pro-bitcoin senator from Wyoming, is using the term “digital assets,” which is what the bitcoin-only guys would call a euphemism for worthless tokens that are only redeemable for dollars because of gamblers and speculators.
The strategic shitcoin reserve is coming pic.twitter.com/sfQr71xi9q
— FRANCIS – BULLBITCOIN.COM (@francispouliot_) January 21, 2025
Except that’s what bitcoin is, too. It isn’t money. It’s a speculative asset with no intrinsic value, only going up because of speculators and “whales,” unlike gold, which has been the bedrock of financial systems for millennia. Gold was money when Rome was minting coins, when the British pound was the pound sterling (referring to its weight in silver and gold), and when the U.S. dollar was as good as gold until Nixon closed the gold window in 1971.
When we had some form or another of a gold standard, from 1834 to 1933 in the U.S., with a break during the Civil War, the dollar was directly convertible into gold. This period was marked by economic stability, with inflation averaging just 0.1% per year. Compare that to the fiat era post-1971, where inflation has averaged around 4% annually if you use the cooked government’s numbers, eroding the purchasing power of the dollar. Real inflation is much higher, but even using the government’s own CPI data, the dollar just keeps buying less and less. Bitcoin is a volatile, immaterial speculator’s slot machine that isn’t going to add any stability to our economy.
The Fed sets a ridiculous 2% inflation goal not because that’s some magical number where there’s a correct balance of inflation. There is no correct balance for bankers to decide; inflation should be decided by market forces naturally and not set by dictate. But the Fed has always known that a 2% inflation rate is slow enough that the average person won’t notice from day to day and week to week that their savings are disappearing. You can get away with stealing 2% of someone’s money at a time without them figuring it out. People say that bitcoin goes up because it’s limited, while the Fed keeps printing dollars and reducing their purchasing power. But that’s a reason that gold holds its value, not bitcoin, which goes up not because it’s “scarce” but because there keep being new waves of suckers.
Bitcoin isn’t gold, it’s a digital casino chip, and it shouldn’t be a reserve currency for anyone—and the United States shouldn’t be buying it with taxpayer dollars to pump the crypto holdings of the president’s family, friends, and fans. During the gold standard era, federal debt as a percentage of GDP was much lower compared to today’s figures, where we’re looking at over 100% debt-to-GDP ratio. If Trump wants to leave a legacy of economic stability, he should advocate for a return to the gold standard, not chase after cryptocurrencies.
US Debt-to-GDP Ratio
So now we have a massive debt bubble and bitcoiners act like their speculative coin, which only goes up because more people think bitcoin will go up, is a peg of stability like gold. But all they’re doing is they’re weaponizing the dollar to pump their own bitcoin bags. Instead of just speculating on it with their own money, they want to speculate on it with everyone else’s money too, effectively forcing the American taxpayer to finance bitcoin purchases that will make their own holdings more valuable.
Bitcoin was supposed to be open and free, but now all the bitcoiners say they want every American taxpayer to be forced to buy it. Their alleged reason is to use bitcoin appreciation to pay down the debt and save the dollar, but that sends a loud message that the dollar is trash, and that we should be holding a reserve of a speculative token instead. And it completely contradicts earlier claims that bitcoin was supposed to replace the dollar.
Bitcoiners have changed their tune, now saying bitcoin will somehow save the dollar rather than being a life raft to escape it. Their revolution turned into trying to merge with the system, saying that bitcoin is just what the dollar needs. When you don’t have a real plan or a real solution, you just move the goal posts.
The goal posts don’t move with gold, because they were set in stone thousands of years ago. When your currency is backed by gold, you can’t just spend like there’s no tomorrow. You have to have the gold to back it up. That means no more reckless spending, no more ballooning deficits. Politicians hate it because it takes away their magic money-making machine, but that’s exactly why we need it. Bitcoin doesn’t impose discipline. It does the opposite, turning the country into a crypto casino where everyone hopes the value keeps going up because they’re playing a game of musical chairs and they’re going to lose it all when the music stops.
All that does is enrich existing holders. The government loves spending other people’s money, but bitcoiners falsely calling themselves libertarians or devotees of Austrian economics are now saying that no, the government should be spending other people’s money, as long as they’re spending it on bitcoin.
Trump should be talking about going back to a gold standard instead; that’s the real peg that would impose discipline and force lawmakers to scale back all their pork, wars, and undisciplined spending. All bitcoin does is unleash a speculative wave that pumps the bitcoin bubble bigger and makes bitcoiners richer in the short-term, using taxpayer money. It’s volatile, unlike gold, and instability is the antithesis of what any reserve currency should embody. The US economy needs a bedrock, not a roller coaster.
Under a gold standard, economic policy would be anchored by something tangible, not speculative digital assets. This would mean a return to monetary discipline where the value of money is not at the whim of central bankers or politicians but is instead tethered to something with intrinsic value. This discipline would foster long-term economic stability, lower interest rates, and reduce the boom-and-bust cycles we’ve seen with fiat money.
A return to the gold standard would signal a real commitment to fiscal responsibility rather than commitment to crypto donors. It would force the U.S. government to live within its means, cutting down on deficit spending and making waste and war unaffordable. It’s ironic that bitcoiners claimed this is what their token would accomplish when the solution—gold—already exists. They say bitcoin forces discipline, but what it has actually done is spawned an industry of casino tokens, scams, and Ponzis.
And Gold’s utility goes beyond currency. It’s used in technology, in medicine, and has a cultural significance that transcends borders. Its supply is naturally limited by what’s in the Earth, not by some arbitrary code. Bitcoin, on the other hand, while capped at 21 million coins, has seen its value fluctuate wildly according to the whims of large “whale” bitcoin holders, by printing infinite amounts of other cryptos like Tether that are linked to bitcoin and used to pump its price, and gamblers who buy in hoping to get rich.
Even its so-called decentralization and immutability are moot when large mining firms are taking over the industry and the majority of buyers are using traditional banks and exchanges using KYC (Know Your Customer) procedures where you upload your ID in order to buy the “freedom money.”
To all those Bitcoin cheerleaders, I say this: wake up and smell the gold. It’s time to return to what’s always worked. Anything less is just playing with fire, or in this case, with digital ones and zeros.
