j's avatar
j j@primal.net 1 year ago
Humm… S.4912 — 118th Congress (2023-2024) This Act may be cited as the “Boosting Innovation, Technology, and Competitiveness through Optimized Investment Nationwide Act of 2024” or the “BITCOIN Act of 2024”. “SEC. 10. PROTECTION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS. (a) Rules Of Construction.—Nothing in this Act shall be construed to— (1) authorize the Federal Government to seize, confiscate, or otherwise impair any property right in the lawfully acquired Bitcoin holdings of any person; or (2) infringe upon the rights of individuals, businesses, or organizations to purchase, hold, transfer, or dispose of Bitcoin in accordance with the law. (b) Affirmation Of Rights.—This Act affirms and protects the rights of persons to maintain full lawful control over the Bitcoin and other digital assets of those individuals, recognizing that the ability to maintain self-custody of private keys is fundamental to the principles of financial sovereignty, privacy, and personal liberty in the digital age.” https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/4912/text?s=1&r=1&q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22s.4912%22%7D#id3f2245bd62324855bb316db6b3d6b08a

Replies (8)

samuel's avatar
samuel _@bitcoinstr.us 1 year ago
VERY SCARY!!! #btc #bitcoin #bitcoinstr Beginning on the date of enactment of this Act, any Bitcoin under the control of any Federal agency, including the United States Marshal Service, shall— (1) not be sold, swapped, auctioned, or otherwise encumbered; and (2) upon the acquisition of legal title to such Bitcoin (including after a final, unappealable judgment is entered in a criminal or civil forfeiture action in favor of the Federal agency), be transferred by the head of such Federal agency to the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
1 replies ↓
j's avatar
j j@primal.net 1 year ago
What is scary about this? This act will “federalize” ownership of the bitcoin held by the marshall service.
1 replies ↓
samuel's avatar
samuel _@bitcoinstr.us 1 year ago
You don’t want that. This is a back door to an autocracy being able to make anything bitcoin illegal, seize it all and put it in the strategic bitcoin reserve This part of the act is very scary. I’m telling you we won’t always have good people in power 10 years from now 15 years from 20 years from now we could get a really bad group of people running the show . The brilliance of our founding fathers is that they all recognize that when they wrote the constitution.
1 replies ↓
samuel's avatar
samuel _@bitcoinstr.us 1 year ago
Yep it was a good bill. With the exception of this paragraph. Think about this in the context of the Canadian truckers or ruby ridge. Governments can do very unjust things with impunity. Ruby ridge was the us marshalls… You don’t want the government or any government agency to be able to seize property and add it to their coffers. This paragraph must be stricken. The problem is that these agencies e.g. us Marshalls, IRS, ATF, DEA, etc can start to use this a a back door to seize assets in questionable actions. And you can’t stop the government. their power to enforce is overwhelming with no recourse
1 replies ↓
j's avatar
j j@primal.net 1 year ago
I agree with your sentiment regarding no recourse with government. However, again I believe maybe we are interpreting the bill differently. This section regarding the bitcoin being held by the marshals is included in this bill because they’re the only agency I’m aware of that currently holds BTC. This bill wants to capture that held BTC otherwise it would have to be sorted out what needs to be done with it down the line. As far as I know, I believe the marshals auction property all the time. I could be wrong. Auctioning their confiscated BTC would seem logical. I don’t get the impression after reading this bill that any language in it should be construed to mean the federal government can seize more BTC at will. That I would not agree with.
1 replies ↓
samuel's avatar
samuel _@bitcoinstr.us 1 year ago
Correct, Put simply I support using fed funds to buy Bitcoin and treasury gold certificates of deposits to buy Bitcoin even T-Bills for that matter, but ALL seized Bitcoin or any other asset should be sold on the open market to the highest bidder. The government should not be given any motivation to seize any asset other than enforce law. Allowing seize Bitcoin to go into strategic treasury motivates agencies to seize Bitcoin and harshly enforce law or broadly interpret statutes. We don’t need that.
1 replies ↓
↑