A ‘Crypto Reserve’ Misunderstands Money, Shows Why Crypto Isn’t Money

PARIS, FRANCE - FEBRUARY 16: In this photo illustration, a visual representation of digital ... More cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethernum, Dash, Monero and Litecoin is displayed on February 16, 2018 in Paris, France. Digital cryptocurrencies have seen unprecedented growth in 2017, despite remaining extremely volatile. (Photo Illustration by Chesnot/Getty Images)
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Wise minds inside any presidential administration would quickly sell every barrel of oil presently stored in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Forgetting for a minute that there’s nothing about energy or energy policy in the Constitution, why on earth would any government stockpile a global commodity that, for being global, is always and everywhere accessible at a globally arrived at market price?
If the answer is that nations can embargo us as they did the U.S. in the 1970s, go back to school. Or better yet, don’t go back to school. The 1970s embargo in no way kept oil from reaching the United States. Embargos are symbolic as opposed to economic. No matter what happens, the oil will flow.
What’s true about oil is also true about cryptocurrencies. Why on earth would any presidential administration or any government stockpile what, for being digitally stored and globally available as is, will always be available at a globally arrived at market price?
It’s worth adding that while a strategic petroleum reserve vandalizes basic economics, it can at least be said that oil constitutes real, consumable wealth. Digital money is just digital money. It’s not an instigator of wealth, it’s merely an effect of wealth. Why stockpile effects that once again are already available digitally, and at the click of a mouse?
Yet the Trump administration is in the process of setting up a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Assets Stockpile. Why? What’s strategic here? What would it do for us in an emergency? While you can’t eat dollars or money substitutes like gold, they’re at least tangible. What is strategic about a government stockpile of digital coins?