Commentary: Big Tent Ideas

LARRY PROVOST: Trump Fulfills Another Campaign Promise

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In fulfillment of a campaign promise and on the day before the first ever White House Crypto Summit, President Donald Trump has established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve for the United States. The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve will have far reaching national and international implications in the decades ahead.

President Trump signed an executive order on March 6 establishing the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

The Bitcoin reserve is a further government acknowledgement of the power of digital currency and its general acceptance by the business community and much of the public. Indeed, during the first days of the administration, the president signed an executive order establishing policies to promote the growth of cryptocurrency in America while ensuring some measure of regulation.

During a time where many federal offices are being downsized or even abolished, the reserve will be administered by one of the few new offices to be created during the Trump administration.

Future additions to the reserve will also not be deposited in the United States Digital Asset Stockpile via future government purchasing or taxation upon the American people but rather through the seized assets from criminal and civil proceedings.

The immediate sell off of Bitcoin by some investors, upon the news of the executive order being signed, is much ado about nothing and will be taken up in time by forces of the market. Bitcoin has already weathered ups and downs in the past and remained steady throughout, showing digital currency is here to stay. President Trump’s order acknowledges that fact.

Further, the latest executive order will have the effect of motivating other nations to do the same in establishing their own Reserves, as they and America have done in the past with silver and gold, resulting in further legitimizing said currency. Even state governments are moving in this direction, as the Texas Senate recently passed a bill to establish a similar reserve in that state while there is similar movement in New Hampshire and Utah.

Though The United States Digital Asset Stockpile may not get as much attention as other national and international news, especially in an administration that has seen a flurry of action in less than two months into the president’s second term, the establishment of a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve is something that will be felt by generations of Americans, and indeed the world, long after this Administration finishes its work.

Arguments about the security and safety of digital currency remain, much more so than its viability as a currency.  Even scholars at The Heritage Foundation and other realms of American Conservatism disagree on the security and even Biblical nature of Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and digital assets.

The introduction of digital currency is a watershed in economic policy and practice, on the scale of Bretton-Woods and Nixon taking America off the gold standard.

The president’s establishment of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve is the acknowledgement of an existing reality of digital currency not going anywhere and that it is better to get ahead of the game. Such a reserve may also turn out to be one of its best safety features not only in its establishment, with the very definition of a reserve serving as a protection of said currency, but also in having a nation with the values of the United States, as opposed to our adversaries, taking the lead on a worldwide financial trend.

May we never stray from those values through market, political, and even spiritual turmoil.

*Views expressed in this article are those of the author and not any government agency.

Larry Provost is a Columnist and Commentator in Washington, D.C. A 25 year Army Veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, he holds a Masters of Divinity from Liberty University, an M.P.S. in Legislative Affairs from The George Washington University and an M.A. in Defense and Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.