Texas Buys $5 Million In BTC ETF As States Edge Toward First Government Crypto Reserves (coindesk.com) 69
Texas has purchased $5 million worth of BlackRock's bitcoin ETF as an initial step toward creating the first state-level bitcoin reserve in the U.S.
"[O]ther states having previously invested in such funds with public-employee retirement money," notes CoinDesk. "Michigan has been building such an investment, and Wisconsin sold its $350 million pension-fund stake in the BlackRock ETF in May. From the report: A few weeks ago, Texas moved past its deadline to "capture the industry's best practices so it can utilize these practices in the implementation and management" of its bitcoin BTC reserve, according to its formal request for information issued in September. Entities across the industry provided input on how it could set up and manage the stockpile conceived of in the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Investment Act.
Last week, the state comptroller's office moved to secure $5 million in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) as a placeholder, a spokesman for the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts told CoinDesk on Tuesday. It's an opening move as the state continues to work toward a contract with a custodian, he said, which will take place after it develops its formal request for proposal.
Last week, the state comptroller's office moved to secure $5 million in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) as a placeholder, a spokesman for the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts told CoinDesk on Tuesday. It's an opening move as the state continues to work toward a contract with a custodian, he said, which will take place after it develops its formal request for proposal.
At last. (Score:5, Informative)
Greater Fool scheme finds Greatest Possible Fools (goverments) to keep pumping money into their zero-sum game.
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Difference in fundamental rights. (Score:2)
Jokes aside about Thanksgiving...
Thanksgiving dinner costs a little more this year, govt can I has a few thousand in free money? What's the difference between those examples and texas buying btc?
The difference is that food is part of(*) rights to an adequate standard of living as per Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Not dying of starvation is a fundamental human right.
So yeah, I get that you're joking about somebody throwing an excessively opulent Thanksgiving party and then complaining that it costs a bit much.
But making sure that every single person has access to sufficient food is a core job that government has to do(**). You can make jokes around what const
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But making sure that every single person has access to sufficient food is a core job that government has to do(**)...I understand that from the US' point of view, I am an evil
The scary/evil part is when the government is in complete control of the food supply, because that's how you get Holodomor (ie, the government exports food out of the country during a famine in order to oppress enemies of the regime).
There are exceptions [existentialcomics.com], but the vast majority of Americans believe people shouldn't starve (and most would like the government to do something about it). Even Libertarians think people shouldn't starve, although they don't agree on how to stop it.
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You do understand that government budgets don't work like balancing your home expenses, right?
People keep saying this but where is the real evidence for it?
We have been doing this pure fiat experiment for less half a century. It seems to me it works only as long as people are willing buy government bonds and that is only as long as they think the interest paid outweighs the time depreciation + whatever value they place on the 'security in terms of capital preservation'
This is exactly the same as my home budget, I can spend more than I make as long as people will continue to extend me credit ...
Once
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Unlike your home budget, a government also controls the currency in which it borrows. It can therefore print money and spend it, which governments do. The beauty of a growing economy, along with a policy of inflation, is that it allows the government to manufacture quite a bit of free money rather than borrow it.
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He's a smart guy he knows better, he just hopes to confuse bystanders.
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As I said; I can default. A bankruptcy would let me even keep quite a lot of the property. Government printing is the same as that default, or at least the opposite side the coin. They get to keep their spending, your savings get devalued.
inflation isn't free, and it is not magic - (there are other reasons it might be better for growth than deflation) but in terms of government purchasing power, a growing economy without and increase in money supply would just mean the existing money buys more, so govern
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People keep saying this but where is the real evidence for it?
Literally the entire subject. This is like asking if you can get airline status by running up tech debt.
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But making sure that every single person has access to sufficient food is a core job that government has to do(**). You can make jokes around what constitutes "sufficient", but you can't deny that nobody should die of starvation.
There isn't a shortage of food available to the poor in the US. Between local/state governments and charitable organizations, food is available to anyone in need. Organizations are always looking for volunteers to help serve the food, but all the food gets distributed to people who are willing to come pick it up, or sign up to have it delivered to them.
As an example, for 1999-2020 over 30,000 malnutrition-related deaths in the US were related to hospice "care". That's 3-ish percent of the total 103,000 mal
Re: At last. (Score:2)
Why assume prices are rational in the first place? If inflation is noise, i.e. there is plenty of food but prices are set by monopolists at their discretion, why not index everything to inflation so real purchasing power doesn't suffer?
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Governments won't pay a dime. The taxpayers, you and I, will pay for it all. Damn shame we're letting them do this
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Just be sure who the fools are. While this applies to the Federal government more, Texas might know something and might be hedging.
I mean if I was a large government with structural financial problems, deficits that politically I could never close and mountain of existing debt.. I might be very interested say transitioning the real economy to something like bitcoins, (giving my wealthiest friends a heads up on that of course).
Get business selling stuff in btc, paying employees in btc, collect taxes in btc,
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That has two parts:
Number 1 has been a solved problem for over a decade now. Between credit cards, ApplePay/Venmo/PayPal/CashApp/etc etc, cash transfer over the internet is virtually instantaneous and acceptably small cost.
Number 2 is of absolutely no interest to governme
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1) - Entirely correct; a block chain currency is stupid
2) - Also correct and the reality is governments need these things, which is why I think it would be about the dumbest move in history but..
lets again say your goals are
* Dodge the legislature and the existing body of law
* Get people to continue participating in your economy, while also doing something that will completely destroy any faith and trust in your ability to control a currency for generations because you're effectively going to swipe their li
Re:At last. (Score:4)
Texas is the state that refused to connect the electric grid to other states, resulting in power outages in the middle of the winter due to a lack of planning or preparation. The politicians just don't care about the people, other than those who put money in their pockets. In other states, at least there are a FEW politicians who don't want to see people starve or freeze to death that try to improve things.
Crypto is entirely a gamble, it's not based on anything where insider trading in one form or another might allow for investments to be a safe bet. Those politicians are the ones who will still get big bucks, even if the entire economy collapses and 95 percent of the population becoming homeless.
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Crypto is entirely a gamble, it's not based on anything where insider trading in one form or another might allow for investments to be a safe bet. Those politicians are the ones who will still get big bucks, even if the entire economy collapses and 95 percent of the population becoming homeless.
Crypto is a speedrun of why we have banking regulations.
Not sure where I read this. Maybe Maddox wrote it.
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Correct, now those government retirement funds are free for the taking, as designed.
Current Stage: The Great Grift (Score:1)
The grand master plan of crypto
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: c
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Feynman died in 1988. But OK.
No complaints (Score:5, Insightful)
You’re getting exactly what you voted for.
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Jesus fuck you could not pay me to move there
Pyrite Pete's failed prediction (Score:3, Informative)
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 - it took over 3 years to get anywhere 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 that BTC will be up to 100,000 USD in a few months, if not by the end of [2022]." [slashdot.org] - LOL!
"We will be having the same discussion when it gets to $100,000 later [in 2022]" [slashdot.org] - LOL!
"[Bitcoin is] only going up in value" [slashdot.org] - this after it had fallen back down to $26K at the time - LOL!
Jan 9 2024: "[Bitcoin is] likely going to 50k by the weekend" [slashdot.org] - LOL! (gee, what happened to it going to 100K in 2022 Pyrite Pete?? [imgflip.com])
"Don't forget the BTC halving will almost certainly push Bitcoin's price over 100k by May [2024] with ease." [slashdot.org]
"A BTC halving happens in April, so by May [2024] it will be worth about $100,000." [slashdot.org]
"BTC is quite likely be hitting $100,000 by the end of [March 2024]" [slashdot.org]
"Bitcoin is not going anywhere, except over $100,000 by April [2024] due to the halving." [slashdot.org]
"It is well on the way to breaking six digits, and when the halving hits, it only will make the currency more valuable, likely $120,000 by May [2024]" [slashdot.org]
"The halving date is coming near, which means [...] it will likely be over $200,000" [slashdot.org]
"... while [Bitcoin] cracks $100,000 come June [2024]" [slashdot.org]
"There are people betting their hats that BTC will be over $100,000 by June [2024]" [slashdot.org] - L-O-Fuckin'-L!!!!!!.
As stupid as this is (Score:5, Interesting)
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Though I'd say the people ultimately responsible are the ones who invented this garbage in
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and if this fund goes bust they'll be fine. Texas won't be. The people in Texas' government who decided to make this investment might cost themselves their pensions, but that little bit of justice will be overwhelmed by the innocents being ruined
The article says Texas bought $5 Million in btc. The annual state budget of Texas is north of $330 Billion. $5 million is a rounding error. Unless Texas increases its BTC investment by 50-100 times, the fund could collapse and Texas wouldn't even notice. The fund likely also bought some hedges to protect against loss of its BTC investment, too (at least a smart investment manager would).
Personally, I wouldn't invest anything you can't afford to lose in crypto. It looks like, so far, Texas agrees with me.
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Im still cheering for dumb people to pour as much
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A pension fund would buy some old man's stamp collection as an "investment". Just so happened the old man was a relative of the fund manager.
Sounds almost quaint compared to Kushner selling the country to Mr. Bone Saw.
Buy gold instead (Score:1)
BTC is too volatile to invest in.
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As of late, Gold has been too volatile for a pension fund to invest in as well. If you look at the price chart for gold this year, it looks more like a tech stock with huge gains and large dips.
It also looks overvalued and is probably due for a correction, just like most other assets are at the moment.
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It's better than the fool's gold BTC
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Trump and his band of criminals doing SOMETHING stupid, criminal, or both at the same time could definitely cause a crash. Look what the tariffs have already been doing to the economy.
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Gold is what all the Chinese-run scammers are pushing now. They can set up a fake gold trading platform with more credibility than a real cryto exchange would have.
look ma, (Score:3)
At least with magic beans, at the end of the day, you at least still have beans.
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YAFS (Yet Another Financial System) (Score:4, Insightful)
Like I've said before [slashdot.org], this is just yet another financial system being created to have a minority of people manage the majority of the wealth, to their own advantage. This is just a new competing system with less regulation created by the crypto bros to wrestle the current system away from the Wall St. bros.
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Like I've said before [slashdot.org], this is just yet another financial system being created to have a minority of people manage the majority of the wealth, to their own advantage. This is just a new competing system with less regulation created by the crypto bros to wrestle the current system away from the Wall St. bros.
I think this view gives the crypto bros too much credit. They might now be thinking about taking advantage of the opportunity to wrestle the system away from the Wall Street bros, but there was no such plan.
Government-backed MLM is still MLM (Score:3)
who came up with this, dr evil? (Score:3)
"Five Million Dollars" /puts pinky up to mouth
5 million dollars is 0.000014% of the Texas budget. If push came to shove and they needed to cash this out to run state operations, the could keep the state going for about seven minutes.
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It's not much money because it's a bad idea. This is about legitimizing crypto coins paving the way for additional marks.
Re: who came up with this, dr evil? (Score:2)
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This is like advising hospitals to keep a tulip stockpile. There is no value and majors investment firms are calling it a bubble. This is rich people offloading risk onto marks
what is a reserve? (Score:2)
a government or anyone may decide they need a reserve of something in case it later becomes unaccessible when needed. When can a government *need* BTC? Needing oil or food or water or weapons or gold is understandable, those are real things and it is possible to run out of these items and be in a position where access is limited.
If one "needs" crypto currency they may either purchase it in the market freely or just start their own, even Trump has done this on multiple occasions.
Note, it says "a reserve"
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For governments, "reserve currencies" lubricate trade with foreign countries. Crypto "reserves" are nothing but more fraud, it is a deliberate misrepresentation of what the investment is, the "reserve" serves no purpose whatsoever other than to prop up the fake currency and enable private "investors" to take taxpayer money.
The dedollarisation is in progress (Score:2)
a. Move the planet off the Dollar as the worlds reserve currency.
b. Transfer the US debt to cryptocurrency.
c. Wait for the cryptocurrency to tank.
d. In the process, wiping out the US debt
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Are you nuts? el Bunko is likely to glom onto an idea like that and make it cornerstone of his toy administration. You are not helping.
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"b. Transfer the US debt to cryptocurrency."
What does that mean? Debt is money owed, the US doesn't get to declare what currency the debt will be paid back "in".
And if the US government needs crypto to pay its loans, why would that crypto tank?
You can make a list, but that doesn't make you smart.
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d. In the process, wiping out the US debt
The US can easily wipe out its entire debit overnight. Just declare a default on the entire debt. Easy-peasy.
The problem is that wiping away that debt necessarily means taking that money away from the debt holders. Erasing around a $1 trillion in assets each from Japan, China, and the UK would prompt a global economic crisis that would necessarily significantly affect the US.
The other problem is that once the debt is erased, the US will no longer be able to find foreign buyers of its future debt. That's
Why does Texas need to launder money? (Score:2)
Why does Texas need to launder money? Or are they doing this to get experience in wash trading?
Either way, buying an ETF is doing it wrong.
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why is this being called a "reserve" (Score:2)
In what way is this investment a "reserve"? It serves no function of a currency reserve. It is a speculative investment of the worst kind, and almost certainly a corrupt one.
NFTs to diversify (Score:2)
Crypto is for CRIME (Score:2)
So you know when you see anyone or any organization using it that they are a fleecer or the fleeced.
Crypto has no real value. Just the agreement that that it has value among it's users. Which are mostly those who want to exchange value that is hard to trace. So Cyber Ransom, Pig Slaughters, and the Cambodian gang run prisons full of kidnapped people being forced to use digital communication technology to steal from other people in countries without mutual extradition treaties.
Can Texas citizens demand that