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Comment by _heimdall | Hacker News Reader

This is actually the same reason why I'm surprised when anyone that is into bitcoin likes the idea of the federal strategic reserve. The government specifically saying they won't buy any, they'll just put any seized bitcoin into the reserve to be used later.

Why would anyone like that the government created an incentive to seize more bitcoin?

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If the government holds seized bitcoin as opposed to selling it, that will tend to increase the price.

I guess that's why, though the government would then have an incentive to seize as much as it can legally seize.

It'd be one thing if the bitcoin was just thrown in a hole or destroyed. A strategic reserve is a financial asset though, the government will want to grow that fund to help fund pet projects while running a ridiculous deficit.

The government effectively prints money at will; it doesn't need bitcoin. This is an attempt by the current administration to curry favor with people who like bitcoin.

today the government prints money at will, that can change. They will be creating a new federal power with a strategic reserve, it will get abused eventually.

Actually, this fund is THE money printer. Ever increasing in value, not directly usable but great for accounting. It can be used to balance real spending.

imo people who understand bitcoin and its purpose don’t want government to buy it for strategic reserve. That said if you hold your own keys then bitcoin protects you from this type of abuse of power

Holding your own keys would help avoid seizure, but assuming the state already has enough access to reliably track the current owner of any btc they could still come after you regardless of where the keys are.

They also could prevent you from using the btc in any non-private transaction. Companies are required to know their customers, it wouldn't be hard for them to be forced to block specific bitcoin hashes. You could still trade it privately, but it would effectively be gray money and should be worth less.

Interesting scenario. If a government can tie a specific person to a specific wallet, they don't need the keys to go forward with whatever they want to do with that info.

I wonder if the FBI can proclaim a certain wallet is yours and you did some bad thing so you have to surrender those coins. Without the private key, they can't forcefully confiscate your coins. But I wonder if they can say "If any coins leave that wallet, we'll take retaliatory action!".

I would expect that a scenario where they could legally confiscate your coins is also a scenario where they could legally arrest and charge you with a crime. Confiscation of money is likely the least of your concerns there.

The government could gain valuable intel from bitcoin addresses all the way back to the Mt Gox scandal. They would have only gotten more access since then, especially with legitimate businesses operating as exchanges that follow KYC regulations.

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