Texas Governor Greg Abbott signs strategic Bitcoin reserve bill into law | Hacker News Reader

Texas Governor Greg Abbott signs strategic Bitcoin reserve bill into law

theblock.co

15 pointsaustinallegro24 comments

What eventuality is Texas preparing for? How does a Bitcoin reserve help in any way?

TX is preparing for more waves of USD inflation. The conventional understanding is that Bitcoin allows its holders to protect themselves from massive waves of currency debasement. A Texas Bitcoin Reserve throws a massive power re-distribution back into the its hands and out of the those of the Federal Reserve System. Sure, TX could 'hodl' their oil, but sometimes it's good to have a digital savings technology that cannot be debase.

> but sometimes it's good to have a digital savings technology that cannot be debase.

I'm sorry, a what? Digital savings technology? Bitcoin? The "asset" famous for having zero backing and incredibly wild price swings? How is this supposed to work?

Yes. Bitcoin is a robust, networked, digital savings platform. That is its purpose. And if you think it has zero backing, why is it that can't people simply email it to each other? Because Bitcoin figured out how to automate digital uniqueness and prevent digital copies. I guess you will have to look into how it works.

Bitcoin's original purpose was not to be a savings platform, no.

New assets monetise in stages.

1) Store-of-value (volatile, increasing value)

2) Unit-of-account, and medium-of-exchange once it has absorbed most value and so more stable in value, and people have sold all their lesser money into the market leaving them with only their harder money.

See Gresham's and the Thier's Laws

I looked into Tether and that was all I needed to see.

> TX is preparing for more waves of USD inflation.

I mean, the guy sponsoring the bill straight up said its so Texas can invest in the highest performing assets of the past 5 years.

So, it's not in preparation of USD inflation.

It can be both. Bitcoin is useful in the same exact way that gold is. Governments the world over have stockpiles of gold, it’s an asset that goes up over time and also resists inflation.

agreed! thank you

Gold has both industrial uses and aesthetic desirability. I was not aware of those properties in Bitcoin! Thank you!

That type of demand is unrelated to its monetary demand. Gold's monetary qualities are robustness, divisibility, scarcity, fungibility, portability etc.

Bitcoin dematerializes the monetary qualities of gold into a superior, digital form.

What makes a strategic bitcoin reserve make more sense than like a strategic oil reserve or a sovereign wealth fund with a highly diversified portfolio?

I mean isn’t this like Texas just saying they are going to budget buying a bunch of Nvidia stock or Tesla stock or something?

Presumably this makes money for specific people selling bitcoins?

A strategic oil reserve is an actual thing you can use instead of buying it abroad should it come to pass buying it abroad becomes problematic or expensive.

A wealth fund is for folks with a surplus in order to get value out of their investment.

Unlike BTC these things make sense. This is gambling.

Bitcoin is the hardest asset mankind has ever seen - harder than even gold and it's digital. Its optimised (theoretically ideal?) for exchanging and storing large amounts of value for large amounts of time. Nothing comes close.

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