Produced by | OKG Research
Author: HedyBi
At 1:00 a.m. on January 21 (Beijing time), Trump officially took office as the US President again. However, two days before his inauguration, the market welcomed an event that attracted global attention: Trump issued a 100-fold coin called TRUMP. This meme coin, which has no technical basis and is completely based on personal branding, once exceeded $8 billion in market value in just a few days. A successful narrative can arouse consensus, and consensus is an important part of the market.
In this context, Bitcoin, as the founder of cryptocurrency, has an increasing market influence that makes people wonder, is Bitcoin in today's era just a "peer-to-peer electronic cash system"? Whether Trump proposed to regard Bitcoin as a national strategic reserve or some countries have already listed Bitcoin as legal tender, Bitcoin is gradually being regarded as one of the potential "global strategic assets". Is such a proposal just because of the scarcity brought about by the fixed supply of Bitcoin? We can find its deep meaning from history.
Oil and gold: the cornerstone of national strategy
Looking back at history, it is not difficult to find that energy and precious metals have always been the core guarantee of national economic security. The oil crisis in 1973 forced the United States to establish a "Strategic Petroleum Reserve" (SPR) to provide protection against supply chain disruptions. To this day, the United States is still one of the world's major oil reserve countries, and its strategic oil reserves have long been stable at around 700 million barrels, accounting for 15% of the world's reserves.
Gold is another older strategic reserve asset. After the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, although the dollar was decoupled from gold, the status of gold has never been replaced. As a symbol of wealth and credit, gold is still one of the main reserves of central banks. The United States currently has about 8,133 tons of gold reserves, accounting for 23% of the world's total, which provides additional stability and credibility for its financial system and strengthens its core position in the global credit system.
The reason why these two assets can become strategic reserves is not only because of their physical properties (scarcity and practicality), but also because they carry the core trust of the economic order : oil is the blood of industrial operation, and gold is the last line of defense of the monetary system.
In the traditional economy, a country's strategic reserves mostly rely on physical assets such as oil and gold, the value of which is usually closely related to its scarcity, availability and market demand. However, with the advancement of technology and the deepening of globalization, the limitations of physical assets have gradually emerged. According to the latest data from the World Gold Council, gold will have a net outflow of US$4.865 billion in 2023.
What we have to think about is what characteristics the new generation of national strategic reserves in the technological era need. Are national strategic reserves in the technological era still just in the form of "physical assets"?
Bitcoin: A new strategic reserve in the technological age?
The demand for "trust" has changed profoundly in the technological era. The traditional trust system relies on the guarantee of the government, banks or other central authorities, while Bitcoin proposes a decentralized trust mechanism - it does not need to rely on a single institution or government, and its value is recognized and maintained by countless market participants around the world. Because of this, Bitcoin has the characteristics of breaking geographical and political boundaries, and can transcend the limitations of traditional physical assets to achieve global value storage and exchange.
Unlike the craze of Trumpcoin ($TRUMP), $TRUMP is a meme coin without a technical basis. It is one of the types of cryptocurrencies, and more of a peripheral attribute such as fan economy. However, the market sentiment and participation enthusiasm it stimulated in a short period of time revealed the new law of market operation, which made us pay more attention to the value of consensus. Whether it is the love of fans, the consensus of FOMO emotions, or the consensus based on mathematics and algorithms, just like the original Bitcoin, as long as people around the world use it and trust such consensus based on algorithms and mathematics and open and transparent ledgers, it will have its own value.
Compared with the "national strategic reserve" of physical assets, Bitcoin carries the scarcity and value storage properties of gold, and has the global circulation potential similar to oil. More importantly, unlike oil or gold, the value of Bitcoin does not rely on the promotion of a certain country or institution, but is built by the beliefs of countless market participants around the world. The industry has observed that Bitcoin is evolving from a "decentralized technology experiment" to a "global strategic asset."
This global trust foundation that is not restricted by geographical and political boundaries is the foundation of the new national strategic reserve in the technological age, and is also an exploration of the society's future trust mechanism.
The United States’ existing layout for Bitcoin
Judging from the existing strategic reserve layout of the United States, its high proportion of oil and gold reflects its pursuit of global economic dominance. Currently, the United States' gold reserves account for 23% of the world's total, and its oil reserves account for 15% of the world's total. These data show that the United States has maintained a high degree of control over the financial and energy systems through centralized resource allocation.
At present, the US government has not announced that it will directly hold Bitcoin as a strategic reserve, but the deep involvement of the private sector in the Bitcoin ecosystem is becoming a global focus. For example, US financial and technology listed companies such as Tesla and MicroStrategy publicly hold Bitcoin, and some US states such as Pennsylvania are considering establishing Bitcoin reserves. US investors indirectly hold Bitcoin through trust funds and ETFs. According to incomplete statistics from OKG Research, as of January 20, the US public sector holds about 1% of Bitcoin, and the private sector holds about 9% of Bitcoin (decentralized exchanges and centralized exchanges cannot be included due to the lack of IP address data). The total amount of Bitcoin held in the United States is about 10%, and 90% is in the private sector. The momentum of the private sector to increase its holdings of Bitcoin continues. BlackRock pointed out that the intensification of fiscal deficits and debt pressures has increased the attractiveness of Bitcoin as an alternative reserve asset, especially among institutional investors. Compared with gold and oil, there is still a lot of room for growth in the proportion of public sector holdings.
Regardless of the method used to reserve crypto assets such as Bitcoin, this is not only a matter of quantity, but also concerns countries' exploration of the upgrade and reconstruction of the future financial system in the era of global technology.
From "decentralized technology experiment" to "strategic asset in the technological era", Bitcoin represents not only the financial application scenario of blockchain technology, but also the bold exploration of a new trust system by human beings. Will Bitcoin be as deeply embedded in the economic lifeline of a country as gold and oil in the future? The final answer may depend on the speed at which the global economy accepts the new digital trust and the vision of major economies for strategic layout.
