Trump's 'Crypto Reserve' Is Such Brazen Corruption
113 comments
·March 5, 2025healsdata
bigyabai
Along this line, we might as well set up a national cocaine reserve too.
deepfriedchokes
The CIA actually did that in the 80’s and the San Jose Mercury News wrote about it.
_imnothere
The slippery slope fallacy is a logical error where it is claimed that a relatively small first step will lead to a chain of events resulting in a significant and undesirable outcome, without sufficient evidence to support that claim. This type of argument often exaggerates potential consequences to instill fear or discourage a particular action.
bigyabai
I must have missed the memo, is cryptocurrency not being used to facilitate the illegal pornography and narcotics trade? Would be news to me.
JKCalhoun
A distinction without a difference. We're still out actual cash and sitting on magic internet money.
nonethewiser
The difference is it's not using tax money. Using tax money is the entire premise for calling it "brazen corruption":
>Trump plans to use your money to buy fake money
Not true if it's confiscated funds.
lavezzi
> The difference is it's not using tax money. Using tax money is the entire premise for calling it "brazen corruption".
Maybe in this article, but the real corruption is in the insider trading.
yencabulator
That's still taking a source of government funding (the money gained by auction) and boosting cryptobro gambling with it.
ToucanLoucan
Yeah but that wouldn't do what this is actually designed to do: enrich the people who financially backed the Republican ticket.
The fuck are we going to even do with reserve crypto? I'm not even on the crypto bit here, the point of strategic reserves is to have stock for emergencies. What fucking emergency can someone possibly imagine that would be resolved with a pile of ETH?
harry8
Sell it to prop up the dollar and/or pay down debt, same as gold reserves.
Whether crypto is a good idea for that purpose is a matter of opinion. I lean toward no. Strongly. Make the case either way and it can be a sensible discussion.
red-iron-pine
in that case why not sell it immediately, turn it into real money, and then spend it immediately? why keep it as a "reserve" at all?
what's the point of having a "reserve" in magical internet money if it can fluctuate by 50%? that's not a reserve, that's gambling.
it's a non-starter of an idea. Trump wants it to launder money.
MR4D
So, I was in a conversation with someone who made an interesting comment.
He said we have a gold reserve and that makes sense, but if we become interplanetary, then you don’t want to pay to ship gold to Mars. Crypto solves that issue. The reserve will last well into the future so preparing now makes sense.
Unique take to be sure, but sharing because it was interesting.
Eddy_Viscosity2
It solves the problem? The problem of shipping gold to mars? This is as made-up a problem as you get. Might as well say "What if advanced aliens come to Earth who already use crypto based currencies and the only way to stop them from destroying the earth is to pay them in ripple. So basically we need the reserve to save all life on earth."
lavezzi
> Unique take to be sure, but sharing because it was interesting.
I think the most interesting point in this is the level in which supporters have stooped to provide 'justifiable' arguments.
Sanzig
Having gold-equivalent reserves seems like the very last thing that Martian colonists need to worry about. I would suspect "how do we survive in an extraordinarily hostile environment with no hope of rescue when something goes wrong" is a higher priority one to solve.
_annum
The United States needs to establish a crypto reserve to prepare for a permanent Martian settlement with an independent economy 100 years from now? It's difficult to think of something less relevant to the well-being of the American public.
antifa
> then you don’t want to pay to ship gold to Mars
yeah it would cost more to ship it to Mars then it would cost to get a team of the most expensive contractors you can find to dig it out of the surface of Mars with their bare hands.
Not to mention the absurdity of thinking crypto would be more usable over interplanetary internet than VISA/ACH, or that such a society on Mars, when more than a research outpost, would benefit at all from being economically bound and gagged to a distant terrestrial currency.
> Crypto solves that issue.
Asteroid mining solves the issue. Gold will be functionally unlimited. Cryptocurrency will be long forgotten in history books after the first self sustaining space colony exists.
Topfi
> … that issue.
Maybe I am missing something, but what issue were they alluding to?
Yes, databases (anything digital for that matter) are easier to transfer over large physical distances. Why would there be a need to ship or transfer anything in that manner, considering we as earth bound humans have stopped moving around large quantities of gold for purely financial purposes quite some time ago?
Besides being a damning inditement of whatever interplanetary society they were envisioning, I’d be interested in what their view on modern day precious metal trading as a whole is.
7e
Mars lies just at the edge of the asteroid belt. There is plenty of gold in the belt.
But to state the obvious: the Martians can keep their gold in Earth banks, just like Russia used to keep its gold in UK and Swiss banks. Many European countries still do. Even on Earth, nobody prefers to move gold around.
dullcrisp
Why not ship the gold to Mars?
unethical_ban
Let us not give the government a higher incentive to use the legal system to enrich themselves.
neilv
Related:
> The “strategic reserve” exposes crypto as the scam it always was (alexkolchinski.com) | 125 points by kolchinski 2 days ago | 124 comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43236752
takeda
Why those articles are immediately flagged? It is tech related.
dang
The title is inflammatory and the topic is inflammatory/repetitive. That's enough to explain why users flag these.
In fact, if they didn't, then HN's front page would consist of little else.
sillyfluke
Hi dang, is a user with similar karma levels as the flagging user able to unflag a post? If so, can you mention that in the FAQ as well? You may think it's obvious but I think it would have a calming effect on the meta-thread if people know that another user with the same amount of cred could theoretically unflag the post.
There is information in the FAQ about how to flag a post and who gets to do it, but it's unclear, at least to me, if another user with a similar karma level is able to unflag it.
I agree that a user may find the title inflammatory because it's an opinionated accusation without an explicit court decision backing it up, but I want to emphasize that official HN moderators should not be able flag this specific post as Coinbase is a YC company and happens to be one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, hence the conflict of interest in burying this story. I can't see any way how someone could contest the fact that this story presents a conflict of interest for YC.
ddxv
Is the flagging of articles an absolute number? How does the article get 100+ upvotes but still flagged? Does it mean it early hit the flag threshold to get flagged and later got the votes, or that the flags continue to outweigh the upvotes?
dredmorbius
These are not normal times, dang. You're normalising them.
(Not in the financial sense.)
bongodongobob
Yep, all the times presidents of countries make scam coins for their citizens. Amongst other current events. This shit isn't normal.
bigyabai
Hey, at least we got to see what NetBSD looked like on a JavaStation before the collapse. I'm sure voting-age US citizens will really appreciate the tech caucus' focus on the real issues facing a rapidly modernizing society.
"bongodongobob, why is the president's decentralized technology defrauding American citizens?"
"Dunno, haven't you ever wondered why FastDOOM is fast though?"
mathewdaves13
There are many cases of cryptocurrency theft currently on circulation which I also fell victim to last week but I was fortunate to lookup Reclaiminstantcrypto @ gmai|com who completely restored my losses. They're the real deal
7e
It is much harder to steal gold than crypto. Crypto prices are volatile, and they depend on sophisticated computing infrastructure to work that may not exist after a catastrophe. Crypto depends on 51% consensus (which can be attacked by foreign nations), gold does not. Gold has intrinsic value.
The U.S. already has a gold reserve, and an oil reserve. There is no need for a crypto reserve.
bongodongobob
Jimmy Carter had to sell his peanut farm.
Edit: I'm absolutely positive this isn't exactly right. But the idea should register.
hypothesis
Was it a blind trust instead? Which mismanaged the farm so much that Carter had to sell it…
dredmorbius
Blind trust, yes:
"Fact check: Jimmy Carter put his peanut farm into a blind trust during presidency"
Carter put his peanut farm into a blind trust during the presidency – he didn't sell it. An expert told USA TODAY blind trusts allow someone to retain ownership of an asset while transferring management to another person or institution.
<https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/02/24/fac...>
The sale happened after Carter left office, with considerable personal debts:
The Carters sold the peanut farm in March 1981, shortly after Carter left office following a failed bid for a second term. Years of drought and changes in warehouse management had left the Carters with more than $1 million of debt at that point...
I'm not sure a blind trust makes particular sense for a specific business as an isolation measure. Contrast with, say, an investment portfolio where management of the portfolio is completely handed over to an independent entity. In that case there's no direct managerial control over the individual investments themselves (save shareholder votes), and the contents of the trust can vary over time.
Putting an individual business in a trust strikes me as putting a single item in a bag and then into another bag. You're not abstracting or collectivising, only putting more packaging around it. Maybe there's some managerial distance, but everyone on both sides of that gap knows exactly who ultimately benefits.
(I'm not calling Carter corrupt. He's likely the least corrupt president the US has seen in 50--75 years. I'm saying that this specific measure, well-intentioned as it may have been, was rather empty. It's also immeasurably better than present practices, of course.)
JKCalhoun
And...flagged.
Tadpole9181
It's so brazen at this point and dang just apparently could not care less about it.
AlecSchueler
Where can we discuss these things?
Tainnor
You still can, https://news.ycombinator.com/active will also show flagged threads.
lavezzi
Pathetic.
throwaway5752
They are brazenly corrupt. If you are logical, you just expect it of them. Otherwise how did a line item for about 4 million dollars with the State Department turning into a 400 million dollar contract for Tesla. It's just brazen corruption, they are stealing your tax dollars as quickly as they can.
drivingmenuts
It’s a bit disheartening when you start to realize how very little anyone cares about those of us who don’t have a ton of money to burn.
After they tank the economy, a lot of is should probably just go chuck ourselves into the burn pits. It will save us from having to go into debt hust to board the meat grinder early.
bongodongobob
It's bullshit this is flagged. The President of the United States of America, made a scam coin, to exploit his own fucking citizens. This is unusual.
MrMcCall
Shhh. Don't wake Dan & Paul up. They're busy sleeping through it, I mean, profiting of it.
rl3
Later when some proxy for Russia conveniently steals it all, they'll go "aw, shucks."
red-iron-pine
exactly this.
maybe China or NK or a billionaire who wants to use it to fund Mars adventures, etc.
aqueueaqueue
Trump gives US money to finance drug kingpins, paedophiles, human trafficking, scammers, hackers, ponzi schemers, illegal bookmakers, money launderers, polluters and electricity stealers in countries like NK, China, Russia and at home. Amirite?
Opinions on a crypto reserve aside, we seize tons of cryptocurrency every year in police actions and then auction it off. Just stop auctioning it off and you don't need to buy anything.