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RFK Jr. Says He'd Direct the Government to Buy $615 Billion in Bitcoin or 4 Million Bitcoins (decrypt.co) 167
US presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announced during his keynote Friday at the Bitcoin Conference that he would direct the US government to buy Bitcoin until the size of its Bitcoin reserves matched its gold reserves. At current prices, that equates to $615 billion worth of gold.
RFK Jr. said: "I will sign an executive order directing the US Treasury to purchase 550 Bitcoin daily until the US has built a reserve of at least 4,000,000 Bitcoins and a position of dominance that no other country will be able to usurp."
4 million Bitcoin is 19% of all Bitcoin that will ever exist.
RFK Jr. said: "I will sign an executive order directing the US Treasury to purchase 550 Bitcoin daily until the US has built a reserve of at least 4,000,000 Bitcoins and a position of dominance that no other country will be able to usurp."
4 million Bitcoin is 19% of all Bitcoin that will ever exist.
Looney (Score:5, Insightful)
Tunes.
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Then he picked up a literal brain worm and became conservative.
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Please enumerate the conservative positions he has taken vs the liberal positions.
He's your guy.
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*cough* Israel *cough*
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Experts agree...? (Score:1)
That conference at the capital that had Trump and a 16 year old Fried representing the experts in the field really left an impression...!
make me rich! (Score:2)
I will direct the government to make me rich.
Boring villain stuff (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Boring villain stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are real life lunatics so boring? I want the old school James Bond kind of villains that threaten to sink places with earthquakes and build giant death rays. Instead we get crypto nuts, Hollywood depicts unrealistic expectations of power mad villains!
We have Elon for that. He just needs a monocle and white cat [wikipedia.org], and to move the SpaceX headquarters into a volcano ...
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Nah. With the vicarious glee he takes in casual cruelty, the muskrat is more of a Max Zorin than a Hugo Drax. Really, the only thing he has in common with Drax is being a space nut. But his actions, temperament and interactions with humans are so very much Zorin.
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He's moving his headquarters to Texas, which is rich in tornadoes and hurricanes. Not quite a volcano, but pretty close on the 'natural disaster waiting to happen' scale.
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Well, only if Blofeld did nothing but fundraising, then got stoned and started using his vast wealth to encourage racists to sound off in public.
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You mean like this [twimg.com] ?
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Why are real life lunatics so boring? I want the old school James Bond kind of villains that threaten to sink places with earthquakes and build giant death rays. Instead we get crypto nuts, Hollywood depicts unrealistic expectations of power mad villains!
Well, to be fair - it does sound like he's threatening to heat the world to death.
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What's boring or crazy about this? Seems like a better strategy than just printing money out of thin air to fund pointless foreign wars and devaluing the dollar.
Yeah, why create money with efficient printers when you can abuse the planet by wasting vast amounts of energy and fab capacity to do the same thing.
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On Monday April 26, 2021 @02:16AM UTC, Pyrite Pete [urbandictionary.com] had said:
That was back when bitcoin had already fallen, and down to about $47K at the time. It should've been back up to "twice its value" no later than June 26 2021 - over 3 years ago. It's still nowhere near the $94K Pyrite Pete promised us.
Now that's what I call a prediction #FAIL!
Want more LOLs @ Pyrite Pete shitposts? Here are but a sample:
"It is pretty much a given [slashdot.org]
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You *could* just print money, *but that wouldn't increase the money supply*. To do that you'd have to somehow get that money into circulation, *which you can't*, not unless you're an authoritarian regime where you just put that money in the pockets of the leader and his cronies.
Most of the ways central banks increase the money supply work this way: by credit. Every dollar of credit issued to someone is balanced by a dollar of debt on the bank ledger which will *automatically* take that credit dollar out o
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Every dollar of credit issued to someone is balanced by a dollar of debt on the bank ledger which will *automatically* take that credit dollar out of circulation at a future date.
The balance of debt dollars is actually the loaners IOU signed documents that the bank has. Now how solid is your fiat currency if those loaners can't pay it back? And an additional problem: the dollars to pay back the loans are availabl
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The balance of debt dollars is actually the loaners IOU signed documents that the bank has. Now how solid is your fiat currency if those loaners can't pay it back?
Perfectly sound. You're not extending credit to bag ladies, you're extending credit to *banks*. They aren't going to fail to pay you back because they have no assets, they just have illiquid assets, which you seize and sell to other investors. Note "selling" here, which means you accept currency *which still takes that money out of circulation*.
And an additional problem: the dollars to pay back the loans are available, but the dollars to pay interest on those loans have never been created.
Which takes even *more* currency out of circulation. If that's a problem it's a problem that's very easy to fix. What freaks people out about this -- and justif
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Aside that, the financial crashes we see every 4 to 8 years are due to this s
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Banks also loan each other money, except for *central* banks, which only loan other banks money. It moves around a great deal until it makes its way into a business loan, which is then converted into salaries and other things.
Money supply is insanely complicated and mind-mending. But the simplest to understand the way central banks get money into the economy is that they loan it to big banks. That money they're loaning didn't exist before the loan, and it won't exist after. The big banks turn around an
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Is that before (Score:5, Interesting)
Or after he assaults more women [politico.com]?\
No wonder the convicted felon was considering him. They're both gropers!
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He's actually sponsored by that same man.
It's just to pull votes away from the Left. People that don't like either of the extreme Left or Right can vote for him. The cult won't be affected and will be more likely to win because of this.
Settle down ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why and who cares? Trading money for a different kind of money give us "dominance"? What part of your brain did that worm eat? The crypto is a scam part?
How about 550 Pez Dispensers daily until the US has built a reserve of at least 4,000,000 dispensers and a position of dominance that no other country will be able to usurp? At least we can put candy in them.
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"Trading money for a different kind of money give us "dominance"? "
Trading borrowed money for an abstraction to give us "dominance" at...the bankruptcy court? The country is already broke, no one intends to pay off the debt, the interest payments are nearly the same size as the defense budget and the solution proposed by both parties is to start a war ensuring the defense budget stays bigger.
Peeing money (we don't have) away on Bitcoin does not seem like a wise plan.
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"no one intends to pay off the debt"
Well, no. Generally governments never intend to "pay off" the debt. Government debt is a functioning part of the economic ecosystem. Most of them will only profess to intentions of "balancing the budget". Ideally that means freezing the debt. In practice... "the games we play"...
But nobody is treating the "debt" like it's a bill that someday comes due in full. That's not how it works. Not only is there no expectation that the books will ever be completely cleared off, it
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Why? After we crash the bitcoin will still be worth something.
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Less spending would also mean less "money" aka debt, in active circulation, which would reduce the ability for the market to bear higher prices and thus reduce the [real] rate of inflation or with the higher energy costs currently at play result in some things starting to fail so people could see how fscked the economy REALLY is at the moment.
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Its something else. What that is aint exactly clear.
What would the government do with the bitcoin? Just hold them until the wallet gets hacked?
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Pay for the release of captured spies for one.
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Funny. False and reversed but funny.
The grand master plan of crypto (Score:2, Insightful)
Bitcoin isn't a scam like the rest of crypto.
Ha!
The plan for all cryptocurrencies isn't what they want to make you think it is. It's more sinister than the egalitarian image the crypto boys portray for it.
After the 2008 financial meltdown, cryptocurrencies were born out of it, declared to be the means by which people could be freed from banks/governments, and promised to avoid any such future meltdowns from happening ever again.
But the crypto boys watched closely the result of that meltdown, and formulated their plan: create a new form of currenc
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Bitcoin has ETFs now. Sorry, whatever fight you think you're fighting is already lost.
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Sure grandpa, whatever you say.
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Not really, I'm calling you out of touch with reality. The notion something digital or abstract can't have innate value is an outdated carry over from a world where 99% innate value wasn't found in those things.
"Here's another one for you, "This is different!""
Yes, that much revered wisdom allows us to recognize everything as really being the same as what we've seen before and to know better than believe the claim "this time it is different." Except of course when it eventually IS different than we are old
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A single grain of sugar had more real world value than all the crypto recorded in some computers on the net.
The crypto has negative value when you consider the energy, space, time, and intellectual effort wasted on it.
I worked at a crypto company for a while. In my entire career I have never met a bunch of less qualified, dumb, incapable, lazy, incompetent people. Not at my company nor the other crypto bros we worked with in industry. Complete clown show. Those jerks are not going to create real value o
So he want to do market manipulation? (Score:3)
That sounds highly criminal. Of course the US President is now allowed to be a criminal...
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Judging by the rhetoric of both parties (one of whom is actually correct) it seems that criminality is now a minimum requirement for the position.
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Looks like it. Maybe Biden can find it in him to have Trump officially assassinated? That is probably not what those republican traitors on the supreme court will have envisioned to happen, though.
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my take on that ruling was 'in their official capacity'. So it would have to fall within the parameters of what was laid out in the constitution. Assassinations sort of violate ones 4th, 5th, 6th, and probably 8th amendment. Definitely the 5th with the whole depriving of life without due process. So I cannot imagine it passing the 'official capacity' test.
It's just to get votes (Score:2)
Quack says 'Quack Quack Bitcoin" (Score:2)
RFK Jr is a quack, a crazy, a conspiracy nut, an anti-science anti-vaxer nutcase.
Good thing he'll never be president of any country.
So what he says is worth exactly this much bitcoin: 0
E
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In other words, he’ll probably decide the US election. Whichever party has more vaccine-denying crypto-lovers, that party will lose.
In a weird way, maybe that’s not a bad thing. The party that has more vaccine-denying crypto-lovers, pro
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Re: Quack says 'Quack Quack Bitcoin" (Score:2)
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Peel some nutbag votes off of Trump? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is great, maybe RFK can peel the cryptobros and those people who have a weird hateboner for the federal bank off of Trump. If they can split enough nutbag voter issues, that should allow a reasonably decent level-headed adult to get into the White House.
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These days I'd be satisfied with someone who's not aggressively malignant.
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Do you know any Trump voters?
I see them daily with FJB stickers on their trucks or lawns full of giant Trump banners. Saw someone today with an ARREST FAUCI shirt walking around.
Signs you might be in a cult...
Well Rounded! (Score:4, Funny)
Why does anyone pay attention to that nut? (Score:2)
RFK Jr is a certified cola nut. He has nothing to say of interest or use to any human being alive on the Earth. Why do news entities and people pay any attention to that guy and report on his emissions?
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Because his father was a president that lots of people liked.
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RFK Jr. is what the ring wing thinks liberals are actually like.
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Sorry, I got the wrong Kennedy. In that case I don't know why anyone pays attention.
Isn't this something only Congress can do? (Score:2)
I wasn't under the impression the president can sign an executive order to spend such crazy amounts of money on.... nothing? Doesn't Congress hold the purse strings? Is this just another case of RFK Jr. not having a clue how things actually work?
Yeah, honey? (Score:3)
Yeah, honey? I traded the defense budget for some pogs. Could you pick up some milk and ammo on the way home?
He's basically just a moron. (Score:2)
Fiscal conservatism (Score:2)
They're ridiculing one of their own!
20 years (Score:2)
Well, he just made Kim Jong Un very happy (Score:2)
All N. Korea hackers rejoice.
That's a lot of commission (Score:2)
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If the US made Bitcoin mining a federal priority, it could own the network and control transactions. It could afford overwhelming mining power, and could even distribute it around so nobody could prove they were doing it.
Sounds fun, honestly.
Good thing he is not going to win (Score:2)
How many bitcoins does he already own? (Score:2)
How to pay (Score:2)
Re: How to pay (Score:2)
So the government creates bytecoin. It is made unforgeable through ordinary cryptography. It is made scarce by having a very widely published key, one private key, and after creating 10 million coins the private key is destroyed so no US government bytecoins can ever be created again.
Then we create a
Sure. I like my crazy layered. (Score:2)
It's so much more fulfilling to have the weirdness come in tranches. I don't particularly want to eat a spoonful of sugar, but a Black Forest cake is better.
RFK Jr just proved one thing (Score:2)
Why? (Score:2)
Unless the reason is to use the power of the state to manipulate the value of crypto currency, that is.
It's bad enough when we do it with our fiat currency. Why add to the mess with this shit?
How is this possible⦠(Score:2)
Re:Why is this garbage "news"? (Score:5, Insightful)
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A presidential candidate announcing he would direct the government to buy bitcoin is news, even if it offends your delicate idealogy
Exactly this. Forget the tulip-bulb insanity of suggesting a government stockpile overpriced $hitcoin for a minute and ask the actual relevant question; the fuck makes a presidential candidate THAT worried about the current government solution for currency?
We didn’t exactly leave the Gold Standard at noon yesterday, and are suddenly in need of a solution..or are we?
Re:Why is this garbage "news"? (Score:5, Insightful)
He's a candidate, speaking at a bitcoin conference.
A dude in the world's biggest popularity conference, talking to a bunch of bitcoin zealots, said he's going to make the US government buy bitcoin. And you think its because he's worried, or has any genuine feelings at all on the matter?
Re:Why is this garbage "news"? (Score:4, Funny)
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Mod parent funnier as the best of the so-modded comments. But the story had more potential for humor.
Re: Why is this garbage "news"? (Score:2)
I want to hear the proposal from the Beanie Baby candidate before I make up my mind.
Re:Why is this garbage "news"? (Score:4, Insightful)
This guy is as much a candidate as Colonel Sanders.
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You're clearly attempting to be sarcastic, but judging by the increasingly unhinged attacks by Trumpster Fires on her, they clearly are trembling in fear about her. Considering yours, she is literally the most constitutionally active Vice President in the history of the United States, and indeed does have a long list of accomplishments.
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So you're up for hearing Cornel West, Chase Oliver and Jill Stein's ideas?
Actually *I* would be, although I'm not going to vote for any of them. The more people consider ideas rather than tribal affiliation, the better campaigns all candidates will conduct.
But really this isn't an editorial position Slashdot has thought out. It's just a Pavlovian response to seeing cryptocurrency in a headline somewhere, like your doddering old uncle getting triggered into a conspiracy theory rant at a family dinner.
Re: Why is this garbage "news"? (Score:2)
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Pretty weak and pointless FP. Goes with the story?
However the reactions show why, even if they don't say it. There are still a lot of Bitcoin gamblers on Slashdot and anything that helps push Bitcoins interests them too much. The story has gotten lots of comments, in stark contrast to a possibly significant story posted next to it...
But who is "Slashdot Staff"? I can't recall ever seeing that tag before.
Re: Why is this garbage "news"? (Score:2)
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I can't tell whether you're deluded, trolling, or trying for a funny mod.
FWIW, the thing that gives fiat money it's value is that if you don't pay the government the right amount of fiat money in taxes, they'll come and take your stuff, and perhaps you. What gives BitCoin it's value? Be honest.
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I have asked that question to numerous crypto boys. "What is the underlying driver for the value of crypto coins?".
They can never answer with anything rational.
The best I got was my nephew telling me that bitcoin has value because there are a limited number possible. Sigh.... I explained supply and demand. That the demand for crypto is artificial and based entirely on FOMO whereas the price of apples is based on how many apples are harvested each season vs how many people want to eat them. I then explai
Re: Illegal (Score:2)
Also, not having to trust any third party is only true as long as you never want to exchange your coins into a currency more than a disappearingly small fraction of the world will accept.
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FWIW, the thing that gives fiat money it's value is that if you don't pay the government the right amount of fiat money in taxes, they'll come and take your stuff, and perhaps you. What gives BitCoin its value?
The thing that gives both currencies their value is a willing buyer's belief that it has value. If someone thinks your Beanie Baby is worth $150, and is willing to pay you $150 for it, then by God that's what it's worth, at least for you, right now. Same goes for your Bitcoin, or anything else you might want to exchange (including US dollars, if you want to convert them to some other currency or trade them for goods or services).
All of these monetary mechanisms are really just measuring sticks for humans
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I can see that as an argument for gold (not gold futures) or other solid investments. Not for bitcoin. But those "solid investments" need to be stored where you can get your hands on them, and are subject to begin stolen. (Well, anything is subject to being stolen, but some things are more difficult than others.)
OTOH, where would you store a ton of iron? That's why precious metals are the usual basis of non-fiat currency. But those are subject to variable worth as new mines are opened or new technologi
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"I can see that as an argument for gold (not gold futures) or other solid investments. Not for bitcoin."
That's just your bias against bitcoin [or maybe digital assets in general]. Most of the gold circulating around in private hands is fake.
"But those "solid investments" need to be stored where you can get your hands on them, and are subject to begin stolen. (Well, anything is subject to being stolen, but some things are more difficult than others.)"
If only they existed on a public ledger which remains secu
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In woke world not caring about your political affiliations/sex/gender/gender identity/socioeconomic status and what gets your dick hard IS discrimination.
Well then since you care a good deal about all of them (enough to keep dragging the topic to the front), you have nothing to worry about.