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Is England also Going to Sell its Bitcoins?

Wed 24 Jul 2024 ▪ 4 min read ▪ by Nicolas T.
Getting informed Invest

While the United States embraces bitcoin, will England follow Germany’s footsteps by liquidating its bitcoins?

bitcoin

England’s bitcoins

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

A columnist at Bloomberg, Ms. Webb suggested that the new British Finance Minister should sell the 61,000 bitcoins held by the government. That is about five billion dollars.

This bitcoin reserve is equivalent to what the German government recently lost. Berlin recently sold nearly 50,000 bitcoins. These sales weighed on bitcoin, which has since been recovering after being endorsed by Donald Trump.

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

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

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

With cryptocurrencies absent from Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s manifesto, questions remain about 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 tons of gold at $275 an ounce. That ounce is now worth $2,400…

Since then, nations like China and Russia have been stockpiling gold without limits. There are even rumors that the BRICS are planning to revive the Gold Standard.

Bitcoin increasingly appears as a solution amid geopolitical tensions. It is an absolute store of value as well as a stateless payment system with all the features sought by the BRICS.

It would be imprudent to get rid of bitcoins when a restructuring of the international monetary system is in the making. Donald Trump understands this well. He knows that a monetary deal is unavoidable if he really wants to end the war.

The BRICS no longer want the dollar, and a new reserve currency will have to be agreed upon. Perhaps this is why the former American president is no longer snubbing bitcoin. 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 not to sell the 210,000 bitcoins that the American government already has the good fortune to hold. The United States owns the largest governmental bitcoin reserve.

Next is 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 held in 2018…

Collectively, governments own 2.46% of the 21 million BTC. Or even 3.2% if we exclude Satoshi’s bitcoins and those estimated to be lost.

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

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Nicolas T. avatar
Nicolas T.

Bitcoin, geopolitical, economic and energy journalist.

DISCLAIMER

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.