Will England also sell its bitcoins?

Leave a Comment / Cryptocurrency / By sbai

Tue 23 Jul 2024 ▪ 5 min read ▪ by Nicolas T.

As the US embraces bitcoin, will England follow in Germany’s footsteps and liquidate its bitcoins?

Bitcoins from treacherous Albion

After Germany, will England make the mistake of selling off its bitcoins? This is what Merryn Somerset Webb suggests.

Bloomberg columnist Ms Webb suggested that the new British finance minister should sell the 61,000 bitcoins held by the government. That’s about five billion dollars.

This bitcoin reserve is equivalent to the one that the German government has just lost. Berlin recently sold nearly 50,000 bitcoins. These sales have weighed on bitcoin, which has nevertheless been recovering since its endorsement by Donald Trump.

“Bitcoin is still not a currency, is not an established asset class and is unlikely to be part of the Bank of England’s reserves. (…) Rachel Reeves should sell and use the money to fund some quick wins.”she says.

The CEO of BlackRock, the president of El Salvador and even Bhutan do not share this opinion… Larry Fink believes that bitcoin “has its place in an investment portfolio”. Its Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) is already attracting more investment than its NASDAQ-backed ETF (QQQ).

Elsewhere, the president of El Salvador made bitcoin an official currency and Bhutan invested more than $500 million to mine bitcoins.

With cryptocurrencies absent from Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s manifesto, questions remain over what the new government will do with its BTC.

The United States BTC Reserve

The current situation is reminiscent of 1999, when Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown sold 400 tonnes of gold at $275 per ounce. That ounce is now worth $2,400…

Since then, nations like China and Russia have begun to hoard gold without counting. There are even rumors that the BRICS are planning to bring the Gold Standard back into fashion.

Bitcoin is increasingly emerging as a way out of geopolitical tensions. It is an absolute store of value as well as a stateless payment system with all the characteristics sought by the BRICS.

It would be unwise to get rid of your bitcoins while a refoundation of the international monetary system is in gestation. Donald Trump has understood this well. He knows that he will not be able to avoid a monetary deal if he really wants to end the war.

The BRICS no longer want the dollar and it will be necessary to agree on a new reserve currency. This may be why the former American president is no longer snubbing bitcoin. In this regard, all eyes will be on the Bitcoin conference this Saturday. Rumor has it that Trump will announce the creation of a “strategic bitcoin reserve”.

In other words, he will commit to not selling the 210,000 bitcoins that the US government is already lucky enough to hold. The United States has the largest state reserve of bitcoins.

Next come China (190,000 BTC), England, Ukraine (46,000 BTC), El Salvador (5,800 BTC) and Bhutan (621 BTC). Bulgaria sold the 200,000 BTC it had in 2018…

All governments collectively own 2.46% of the 21 million BTC. Or 3.2% if we don’t count Satoshis’ bitcoins and those that are believed to be lost.

Don’t miss our article: Bitcoin – New record this week thanks to Trump?

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Nicolas T.

Reporting on Bitcoin, “the goddess of wisdom, feeding on the fire of truth, exponentially growing ever smarter, faster, and stronger behind a wall of encrypted energy”.