The US is on the verge of adopting a Bitcoin strategic reserve. The ‘WHY’ really comes down to Bitcoin’s duality as peer-to-peer electronic money and digital gold. In my recent interview with@Adam Back, he explains how Bitcoin allows people to save for the future while retaining its “ability to be a very low barrier to entry global electronic money.” “The introduction of Bitcoin in some of those countries, like El Salvador as an example, actually allowed people to leapfrog from paper cash straight to peer-to-peer electronic money without going through the banking trusted intermediary phase,” Back explained in our interview at Bitcoin Amsterdam. “I think one target for Bitcoin adoption is for it to compete with gold and get somewhere near gold parity as well as its growing usage as electronic money.” My good friend @JoeNakamoto is probably the biggest proponent of this mentality. He advocates for people to spend sats - but he also understands the inherent value of BTC. Definitely a topic that will become hotly debated as more people start acquiring Bitcoin as a long-term store of value.

The World Economic Forum doesn’t talk about Bitcoin - so I made sure we did in 2025. I took the chance to ask if the US will adopt a Bitcoin strategic reserve during the 'Crypto at a Crossroads' session inside this year's WEF conference. Coinbase's Brian Armstrong remains confident we will see a Bitcoin reserve in America. Interestingly, South Africa's Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago made it evident that many still don't understand the underlying value proposition of Bitcoin. Armstrong provided an important response: "Many things have been used as money over the years. I think it's clear at this point that, you know, Bitcoin is a better form of money than gold. It is provably scarce, just like gold, but it's more portable and divisible. So you can actually use it. It was the best performing asset of the last ten years. And so for a store of value, I think it's going to be important for governments to hold this over time. It may not it might start with being 1% of their reserves, but I think over time it'll come to be equal to or greater than gold reserves."