Robert Kennedy suggested that the US authorities buy 45% of bitcoin supply

What’s new? Independent candidate for US President Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. said that if elected he would insist that the federal government buy bitcoins worth $615 billion, which is equal in value to the country’s gold reserves. The US government is the world’s largest holder of gold (8134 tons).

Interview on Scott Melker’s channel

What else is known? To obtain similarly valued BTC reserves, the US authorities would need to buy 9,4 million coins or 45% of the total supply, which is programmatically capped at 21 million bitcoins. To date, miners have mined and have over 19,73 million coins in circulation.

The pace of reaching the 21 million coin limit is gradually slowing down due to the built-in halving mechanism: this event occurs every four years and halves the reward to miners for mining blocks. So far, the last, fourth halving took place on April 20 this year and reduced the reward to 3,125 BTC.

Bitcoin Luxor Mining calculates that with halving, the last bitcoin will be mined around the year 2140.

Such a massive purchase of bitcoins would be in line with Kennedy’s previously announced plans to back the dollar and government debt with a basket that would include hard currencies, as well as precious metals and BTC. Under the politician’s plan, a new class of Treasury bonds could be pegged to that basket at 1% in the first year of the initiative’s launch, with a gradual increase to 100%.

Kennedy plans that during his term as president, the government will purchase the necessary volume of coins. If that happens, the United States will become the largest holder of the first cryptocurrency. By comparison, analytics software developer MicroStrategy, which is the largest holder of BTC among publicly traded companies, owns 226 331 BTC worth $14,41 billion. BlackRock, the world’s largest investment firm, manages 334 000 BTC worth $21,73 billion.

Given that the BTC exchange rate shows significant growth over the long haul, the US authorities may need less than 9,4 million coins to accumulate a $615 billion reserve. Despite this, if the initiative is executed, the country will still become one of the largest holders of the asset in the world.

During an interview with blogger Scott Melker, Kennedy called bitcoin an honest, transparent, and decentralized currency essential to democracy:

“If we want to save our democracy, we need to decentralize. Bitcoin is honest because there’s nobody in charge.”

Over the past year and a half, the politician has been actively speaking out in favor of bitcoin, calling it a guarantee of civil liberties. He also actively opposes the issue of a national cryptocurrency: according to the politician, it will “lead the country to financial slavery and political tyranny,” since the central bank will have the ability to track transactions and control how the digital dollar is used.

Last July, if elected, Kennedy promised to eliminate taxes on capital gains in BTC, which would encourage the crypto industry to remain in the United States and also reported on his own investments in the asset.