• Wilco@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    52
    ·
    19 days ago

    This reality is so fucking stupid. Let’s sell something of value to buy something that is only valuable if someone really wants it bad enough.

  • Sludgehammer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    32
    ·
    edit-2
    20 days ago

    So… I’m guessing the plebs get the cryptocurrencies. Which are backed by stablecoins… which are backed by tech grifters saying “I can cover it bro, trust me”.

    Meanwhile the elites will take all that worthless gold and dispose of it for us.

    • pixxelkick@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      20 days ago

      Bitcoin is backed by the price of coal.

      For all intents and purposes, bitcoin is effectively minted coal.

      • futatorius@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        19 days ago

        Bitcoin doesn’t relate to coal that’s still unburnt. It’s more a certificate confirming a quantum of environmental destruction.

        • pixxelkick@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          19 days ago

          That’s probably a better way to put it yeah.

          And as fucked as it is, it is a fact that this does hold value and is backed by it.

          It’s just a pretty shit thing to be backed by ethically.

          But nonetheless, there is value in bitcoin, it’s just best we don’t encourage further investment in such a thing.

        • pixxelkick@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          19 days ago

          Yep. It’s unethical but nonetheless makes the coin actually have tangible holdings, because it’s actually impacting the real world.

    • KneeTitts@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      edit-2
      19 days ago

      Well no its actually a perfect method of looting the treasury and handing all the country’s future wealth to the billionaires now, making them trillionaires, and all in a way thats essentially impossible to track…

  • middlemanSI@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    30
    ·
    20 days ago

    Mr. Art of the deal-do is robbing you blind. No matter how this ends, he and felon will have stashed piles of you cash

  • PurpleSkull@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    edit-2
    19 days ago

    BWAHAHAHAHAHA Genius. Step 1: Buy Shitcoin with actual gold (the most stable wealth storage)

    Step 2: Bitcoin price rises

    Step 3: Sell all your bitcoin, rugpull the entire thing

    Result: You have now robbed Fort Knox. Legally.

  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    edit-2
    19 days ago

    So personally, I think the government should have some, but I don’t specifically think selling gold for it is the right idea.

    Everyone seems to be on about how this is just about cashing out his buddies, but what I’m worried about is these dumbfucks won’t know how to properly secure it or won’t properly secure it and itll get easily stolen, or they’ll outright steal it themselves.

    Like they just used signal to talk about bombing Yemen and included a journalist on it…

    So while I think it’s not a bad idea to have some, it’s fucking terrifying that Trump is doing this and can influence it.

    • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      19 days ago

      I don’t think the government should have ANY, regardless of how the government purchased the fake assets. It’s a fucking terrible idea for exactly the reason you described. The government should not be involved in such a high risk, unsecured, volatile, ridiculously easily stolen venture.

        • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          19 days ago

          When there’s a disruptive force, you have a few options

          1. try to kill it so it can’t disrupt

          2. do nothing and be disrupted

          3. dip you toes in, so if disruption happens you aren’t blindsided and can hopefully wade through it

          4. take a chance and swim in it so you can be on the leading edge of that disruption.

          They’ve kinda tried option 1 but failed.

          Option 2 could lead to long term consequences

          Option 3 leaves them prepared but not overly exposed

          Option 4 would be pretty risky

          So really, option 3 is probably the best bet given option 1 hasn’t been working.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        19 days ago

        I’m not going to try and convince you on the merits of crypto, but it can be secured so it isn’t “ridiculously easily stolen”

        I just don’t think Trump would do it.

        Edit: Just to give an example - you could make it so you can’t use the money without 100% of congress (house and senate) and the president authorizing it. It would be so secure, you’d probably never be able to use it ever again.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      19 days ago

      How do you think they’re going to transfer the money on a more mature coin? Oops, we lost the keys.

      Oh look Putin and Thiel randomly managed to find the keys to America’s Bitcoins.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        19 days ago

        Hey Putin,

        We’ll give you some more gold to get it back, say $0.75 on the dollar so you get a finders fee?

        Putin - Sounds great!

        two weeks later

        Shit we lost them again, Thiel seems to have them this time, maybe he’ll give them back to us for $0.75 on the dollar as well!

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        19 days ago

        Why does any government invest time or money into new and evolving things. To stay up to date, be ready for change, and see how that new change can be of benefit.

        • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          18 days ago

          Bitcoin isn’t new. It’s almost 30 years old at this point. You don’t need to purchase any substantial amount of BTC to understand how it works. One can simply read the research papers and understand crypto (or pay people smart enough to do so). Also laughably the US government already has billions of dollars in BTC because it holds the funds it seized from criminals.

          We don’t need to buy ANY.

  • flop_leash_973@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    18 days ago

    So they want to trade something that is almost always worth a lot for something that is sometimes worth a theoretical shitload or less than a loaf of bread, depending on the day?

    Brilliant, very good. Nothing stupid will come of this I’m sure. /s

  • njm1314@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    19 days ago

    I don’t know why so many commenters think this is just a joke or funny. They’re talking about stealing the wealth of America to give to their rich friends directly through Bitcoin scams. That’s what this will be. Giant government-funded pump and dump for their rich fascist friends.

    • turmacar@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      19 days ago

      It’s worse because as described in the largest comment in the thread the Federal Reserve is not the US government’s wallet. And there is no mechanism for them to “just sell gold”.

      It’s yet another thing that sounds vaguely feasible only if you know absolutely nothing about any of the systems in place.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      19 days ago

      They’re talking about stealing the wealth of America

      The wealth of America isn’t in a bunch of yellow rocks piled up in a vault in Kentucky. We’re dismantling the NIH. We’re dismantling the NOAA. We’re dismantling Medicaid and Medicare. We’re dismantling the entire higher education system.

      If this was a four year long bank robbery, I wouldn’t give a fuck. It’s the destruction of our scientific and health care communities that has me gaping in horror.

    • orcrist@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      19 days ago

      It is a joke and it is funny and it would also have serious consequences. This is a classic example of the lulz. Politics can be so dark and twisted real, and if you want to stay involved in it for decades, you have to appreciate the lulz and then still keep going.

      Let’s compare it to, for example, the fact that Donald Trump has control over the US military and nuclear weapons. That’s shocking. He’s a complete moron and he’s kind of evil to boot. Many of his good buddies are evil racist pieces of s***, too. So that’s the starting point. That’s where most of us are already at. Does this current idea make things worse? Of course it does. But things were already bad. That’s why we’re not panicking anymore than we were yesterday or last month.

  • PetteriPano@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    edit-2
    19 days ago

    Trump has already made it clear that he’s a Russian asset. The only question that remains is if he doing their bidding knowingly.

    How would he go about transferring wealth to Putin & pals? He can’t do business with them, because sanctions.

    Russia already owns 12% of the world’s crypto.

    Trump can inflate their value by pulling shit like this.

    Russia: profit.

    • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      19 days ago

      There is speculation that a secondary goal here would be to weaken the US dollar as a defacto exchange currency standard worldwide if Bitcoin were to gain prominence.

      That would be highly beneficial to certain “very good friends” of Trump like Putin whom would much prefer an unregulated currency that the US cannot impose controls over when presidents change.

      • 10001110101@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        18 days ago

        It’s not really speculation that they want to weaken the dollar and dethrone it as the world’s reserve currency; it’s in Project 2025. Stated goal is to transition the US back to a manufacturing-heavy economy, instead of service, tech, finance, etc. Probably won’t work well, but that’s what they’re trying to do.

      • PetteriPano@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        19 days ago

        Would it surprise you if the Russian state turned out to be Satoshi and holding on to all those early mined blocks?

        • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          18 days ago

          It would very much surprise me if Satoshi turned out to be Russian (is that what you’re asking?). His whitepaper proposal is written in very fluent English, as are his other communications on SourceForge etc, also Russians are not known for their technological entrepreneurial aspirations - at least not for the last ~40 years.

          To be honest I would not be surprised if whoever Satoshi is has died, rather than craftily holding onto the early minted blocks. Only time will tell if they ever get transacted.

          • PetteriPano@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            18 days ago

            I wouldn’t think it’s one person. More like a state-funded project. I’m not really a conspiracy theorist, but it feels like russiayhas been playing some good 4D chess lately. Feels like the pieces are falling into place for a revelation like that.