U.S. Needs as Much Bitcoin 'as We Can Possibly Get': Bo Hines

If we want to talk about U.S. dollar global dominance, I think that we start here with talking about stables. I mean, when this is implemented, it could revolutionize the global financial marketplace. It'll drive really billions, if not trillions, over the course of the next several decades into U.S. Treasuries, the way that folks are interacting with payment rails.

Thank you very much for having me. It's great to be here.

Well, you know, I get asked this question a lot, and I think the answer to that, like I said at the summit yesterday, is as much as we can possibly get, so long as it's in budget-neutral ways that don't cost the taxpayer a dime. I think we have a lot of high-IQ people in the building. They're working on this, and folks over at the Treasury office and folks over at Commerce, working with the interagency working group that was set up in the first digital assets EO, we'll be able to come up with ways to accumulate more, really over the course of the next few years and beyond that. I mean, look, we view Bitcoin as being digital gold. That's why we set up the strategic Bitcoin reserve in the way that we did. Right. Bitcoin is a commodity. It's not a security, as our AI and crypto czar David Sachs likes to say, it has the immaculate conception, meaning that there's no issuer. It has intrinsic stored value that's traditionally accepted, and we feel like it's in the best interest of Americans to hold on to this asset long term and accumulate as much as we can get.

You know, that's why we've likened this to digital gold and talked about building the digital Fort Knox for the United States. And, you know, you mentioned the Bitcoin that we have possession of. We've actually been in possession of nearly 400,000 Bitcoin. We sold roughly half of that prematurely at about, I think it was close to, you know, 370 million is what we sold it for. If we would have held onto that, it would have been worth 17 billion today. I mean, it just goes to show you how important this asset is and what we can do with it to benefit the American people. You know, one thing that I've said repeatedly throughout the media circuit is that I think it's really nice that we have a president that's actually looking to accumulate assets for Americans rather than take it away, unlike the last regime that we had here at the White House. But we feel very confident about our plan. We feel confident about the interagency working group that was set up in that first EO, and I think we're going to have tremendous ideas on how to accomplish this.

Well, look, I mean, just like gold, it's finite, right? There's only so much of it. And we know that there's going to be a race amongst other actors, potential adversarial actors, to accumulate as much as they can possibly get as well. You know, as the resource becomes more thin, the price, you know, could tend to go up. And that's what we've seen over the course of the last few years. And, you know, while we're not financial advisors, and we, you know, we ask anyone that's thinking about investing in a volatile space, whether it be crypto or somewhere else, to consult an expert before they do, we view it in the long-term interest of the United States to hold on to assets that have intrinsic stored value. And so that's why we've separated Bitcoin really from other digital assets. And you saw that with the U.S. Digital Assets National Stockpile here. We allow, you know, the Treasury basically to act as a broker at these assets to decide what to do with them. But I think part of that in our thinking here was to recognize Bitcoin for being unique.

But also, you know, show that we're willing to see and see through what really should be a thriving digital asset space more generally in the United States. You know, we want to see innovation here. We want to onshore folks here. We love what's happening across multiple ecosystems. You know, we want to continue that development and make sure that American entrepreneurs can thrive. I mean, this is really an industry that's been beaten down and kicked down over the course of the last decade and a half, specifically under the Biden regulatory regime. You know, they were victims of lawfare and unfair regulatory practices. They were treated differently than really any other industry that we've ever seen before. And so I think it's high time that these actors have the ability to innovate here in the United States, do it in a way that benefits the American people. And we look forward to ushering that in.

Any resource that's finite that has value, you want the most of it. And I think that we can say that, you know, we'd like to have the largest stockpile, or reserve, I should say, than the rest of our adversaries across the globe. I mean, this is something that we're keen on holding on to for the American people, and we want to continue to grow that. As we've said, you know, in terms of what the national security interests are, I think it's the same with any resource. I mean, we want the most of every resource we can get a hold of that has that intrinsic stored value. So I'll leave it at that. We'll see how it continues to play out, but I think that we're on the right path to deliver good results for the American people.

Well, I mean, I think that Senator Lummis is really moving the ball forward on Capitol Hill, not only with the SBR, but many other initiatives as well. We talk about, you know, stablecoins and market structure, everything else that's happening up on the Hill. It's all exciting stuff for the space. You know, I think that she has a very interesting idea about what, you know, budget-neutral way in which we could acquire more. I think that she talks about the gold certificates that are, you know, dating back to like the 1970s, in which we could realize their actual value of today and use that to purchase more Bitcoin. You know, that's just one creative way, and we're going to have these conversations with the interagency working group that was set up, and, you know, we'll sort through and flesh out the best ideas and decide how we're going to implement this. But we're going to do that in short order. We want to move quickly, you know, as David has said, our AI and crypto czar, who's just a brilliant human being, by the way, and understands the space really better than anybody, just truly inside and out. He said we're moving at tech speed, and I think that's something that we want to continue with. You know, this is like a startup.

Well, we have these landmarks that are really important from the first digital assets executive order. We had the 30-day landmark, which asked basically all of interagency actors to do an internal audit and review of any rules and regulations that touch the digital asset space and provide us with a report about what those were. We've been able to comb through those, and now we're approaching the 60-day landmark, which requires them to produce recommendations for the working group. And what we'll do as we work towards the 120-day landmark, we'll compile these recommendations and build out a comprehensive report that we can provide to the president. And I think as part of that, we'll certainly be having conversations about the SBR and many other, you know, interagency rulemaking activities as well. I mean, the president made it very clear at the crypto summit this past week that, you know, he wanted to get rid of any rule or reg that undergirded Operation Choke Point 2.0. So that's certainly going to be a focus for us in our first interagency working group meeting, and we're going to continue to sort through the decks and make sure that this industry can thrive without those burdensome regulations that prevented institutional actors from interacting with digital asset firms. So that's certainly the top of our priority list. So is the strategic reserve. We have a lot of work to do, but I think we're off to a great start.

Well, they'll certainly be a part of the digital assets national stockpile, right? I mean, you know, we're going to accumulate as many assets from other ecosystems that we can. And I think that part of the reason that those assets were mentioned is it's just based on market cap, right? I mean, we talked about the top five biggest market cap players in the space, but, you know, with that, we're excited about what everyone's developing and what everyone's working on. We want to allow these American entrepreneurs to thrive and continue to build their ecosystems out, continue to work on advancing digital asset technology here in the U.S. You know, I've been asked by a lot of people, what's your message to folks that went offshore over the course of the last decade? You know, I have a clear message to them. It's welcome home. I think we're going to create the best environment for innovation that could possibly exist and deliver on the president's promise to make this country the crypto capital of the planet.

I don't think they're competitive at all. I mean, the U.S. dollar is very different than Bitcoin, which is a commodity. You know, I think, too, we should talk about a little bit what's happening on the Hill in terms of legislation. We talked about the stablecoin legislation with the Genius Act that just got passed out of Senate Banking Committee with an 18 to 6 bipartisan vote. I mean, this is monumental stuff that's happening there. And if we want to talk about U.S. dollar global dominance, I think that we start here with talking about stables. I mean, when this is implemented, it could revolutionize the global financial marketplace. It'll drive, you know, really billions, if not trillions, over the course of the next several decades into U.S. Treasuries, with the way that folks are interacting with payment rails and the way that they're interacting with, you know, their financial systems in their day-to-day lives. So, you know, we have some really key priorities that are happening on Capitol Hill in terms of stables, and along with market structure, just to provide the regulatory clarity the space needs in order to continue to innovate here and continue to lead the globe in terms of this technology.