Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Russia disagree on Bitcoin. Who should we listen to?

Photo above - last year Putin proposed creating a national Russian crypto currency, to dethrone the dollar. This year he wants to go all in on Bitcoin instead. Because when your back is to the wall, you'll try anything.

Congrats if you already made a fortune by investing early in Bitcoin. Condolences if you're among those who have lost $400 billion in misplaced//stolen/hacked/missing Bitcoins. Laughter if you believe Bitcoin should be the US national reserve currency. See links below.

Most people know who Larry Summers is. Former US treasury secretary. Professor of economics at Harvard. Former Chief Economist for the World Bank. Yada, yada. He thinks making Bitcoin the US reserve currency is a terrible idea.

Nobody knows who Anton Tkachev (Russia) is. Wikipedia tells us he’s 30 years old, and a recent graduate of Plekhanov University of Economics. Which isn’t as prestigious as Harvard, but let’s not automatically call Anton a tool of Putin because of that. However, in the link below, Anton is up front about why he wants Russia to have a giant Bitcoin reserve. Because it’s the only way to evade international sanctions and achieve final victory over Ukraine. See link below.

That’s actually a pretty good reason, when you think about it. If your nation is circling the drain and your national currency is worth a half a cent, you might as well try anything. How many rubles would it take to buy enough bitcoins for this to happen? If Russia wanted just 10% of the (global supply) of bitcoins, it would need to buy 2 million, and $100,000 each. There aren't enough zeros on my calculator to figure out how many half cent rubles that would be.

Larry Summers doesn’t believe in throwing everything against the wall, just to see what sticks. The US dollar is at 50-year exchange rate highs. The US stock market is 60% of global equities. We produce 30% of the world’s GDP. Russia is like . . . 2%? Less, actually.

Mr. Summers doesn’t need to point out that Bitcoin has yo-yoed between $6,000 and $100,000 during the past several years. With a LOT of up and down swings. This stuff is more volatile than Methane, Ammonia, and Hydrogen Peroxide combined. Having the US treasury go all in on Bitcoin would be like making GameStop and Dollar General stocks a key holding in the US strategic reserve.

There are over 600 cryptocurrencies available. Most trade for less than a penny. I don’t want ANY of these crypto currencies siphoning dollars out of the US social security trust fund, people’s 401 retirement accounts, or creating another multi-trillion-dollar explosion in the national debt when Bitcoin inevitably crashes again.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers says Trump’s idea to create a national Bitcoin reserve is ’crazy’

Russia Weighs Bitcoin Reserve As Deputy Warns Sanctions Leave Crypto 'Only Instrument For Trade' Amid Trump's Pro-Bitcoin Push

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@jshm2 i'm skeptical. i don't think "the future" is a currency that lives on the dark web, and is used to transact business such ransomware and narcotics.

SunshineGirl · 36-40, F

@jshm2

So they don't want to move to anything they have little control over.

And there is a good reason for that. Financial services attract criminals who want to.launder their stolen cash and chancers who want to make money fast for little effort. Governments are usually left to clean up the mess. In the UK a new start-up bank called Revolut attracted hundreds of thousands of customers by masquerading as the next big thing, and rapidly lost them again as it became apparent they were unable to protect individual accounts from fraud.

whowasthatmaskedman · 70-79, M

Any country that wants to go to Bitcoin is desperate. Their currency is about to collapse. And thats just a fact Jack!...Bitcoin for a nation meins its criminal actions are being brought into the legitimate economy. The complexities there are endless. But overall it aint good..😷