STRATEGIC BITCOIN RESERVE signed into law! So why is Bitcoin still CHEAP?!?

Published April 17, 2025

  • YouTube Video Transcript

    00:01 Morning everyone. So, a strategic
    00:03 Bitcoin reserve was signed into law last
    00:06 night. So, why is Bitcoin still cheap?
    00:08 Why is it not already gone all the way
    00:11 to the moon? Why is the price not way
    00:13 way way up? Uh, the short take is
    00:15 because financial markets of any kind
    00:17 are irrational in the short term. Uh,
    00:20 but let’s talk through all of it. Okay.
    00:21 So, what actually happened? Well, last
    00:23 night, Donald Trump signed a strategic
    00:26 Bitcoin reserve into law along with
    00:29 separately a digital asset stockpile.
    00:32 Uh, the strategic Bitcoin reserve will
    00:35 hold only Bitcoin, the real Bitcoin,
    00:37 BTC, the real Bitcoin that’s trading at
    00:40 about $90,000 per coin right now. Uh,
    00:44 that is the only thing that will be in
    00:45 the strategic Bitcoin reserve. Uh it
    00:47 states that the US government will not
    00:50 ever sell any of the bitcoin in the
    00:52 reserve and will only acquire it shall
    00:55 find tax uh that the treasury secretary
    00:58 and the secretary of commerce shall find
    01:01 ways of acquiring more bitcoin that is
    01:03 budgetneutral meaning they cannot use
    01:06 direct tax dollars to buy bitcoin but
    01:09 they can come up with all sorts of
    01:10 creative roundabout indirect ways of
    01:13 using financial resources of the US
    01:15 government to buy more bitcoin. which
    01:17 they will do. So, the US government will
    01:19 be buying Bitcoin for the strategic
    01:21 Bitcoin reserve. So, the strategic
    01:23 Bitcoin reserve, the Bitcoin that the US
    01:25 government already has, which is about
    01:27 200,000 Bitcoin, that goes in the
    01:30 strategic reserve, and they only add to
    01:32 it by buying more separately. There is a
    01:35 digital asset stockpile. All of the
    01:37 digital assets other than Bitcoin that
    01:38 the US government owns will go in a uh
    01:41 digital asset stockpile. The government
    01:44 will not buy any more of those assets
    01:47 and will only sell those assets, not
    01:50 buy. So the Bitcoin never gets sold and
    01:52 only bought and everything other than
    01:54 Bitcoin only gets sold but never bought.
    01:58 So they both get moved sort of
    01:60 separately. The Bitcoin goes into a
    02:01 strategic reserve. The other stuff goes
    02:03 into a digital asset stockpile. The
    02:06 reserve only grows. the stockpile only
    02:08 shrinks unless they get more of the
    02:10 stockpile assets through civil asset
    02:12 forfeite or criminal forfeiture of some
    02:15 kind. Okay. Uh so huge news and very
    02:18 positive for Bitcoin. The upside because
    02:20 they’re not using directly using
    02:23 taxpayer dollars to buy Bitcoin is that
    02:25 nobody has a reason to be upset about
    02:27 this thing. So even the people who are
    02:29 not fans of Bitcoin or even the very
    02:32 small shrinking dwindling number of
    02:33 people that hate Bitcoin for some
    02:35 ridiculous reason have no reason to be
    02:37 upset because their tax dollars are not
    02:39 directly going to buy Bitcoin. So they
    02:41 have nothing to complain about. One
    02:45 second. So huge uh huge upside there.
    02:48 Nobody can complain that their tax
    02:50 dollars are buying Bitcoin when they
    02:51 don’t want to. The government will
    02:53 however buy more Bitcoin. uh they’ll
    02:56 just do it through creative indirect
    02:58 means and uh the bill or the uh
    03:00 executive order actually says shall it’s
    03:03 not may buy more Bitcoin it’s shall buy
    03:06 more Bitcoin. So anyway um so very
    03:08 positive uh as you know I’ve never been
    03:11 a huge fan of the government owning the
    03:13 best money in the world. I think the per
    03:15 the pros of a strategic Bitcoin reserve
    03:17 outweigh the cons. Um, the cons being
    03:20 that the government owns more of the
    03:22 best money in the world, which means you
    03:24 own potentially less of it because the
    03:26 more the government owns, the less there
    03:28 is for you. So, I’m not a fan of the
    03:30 government owning uh Bitcoin at all, but
    03:33 if they’re going to own it, it’s better
    03:34 to be in a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
    03:36 And obviously, that has a huge huge huge
    03:39 positive signaling effect to the
    03:41 marketplace. So there even in 2025 where
    03:45 it’s obvious to everyone that Bitcoin is
    03:48 the future of money. Well, not
    03:50 everybody. It’s obvious to everybody who
    03:52 spend at least 100 100 hours studying it
    03:54 that Bitcoin is the future of money.
    03:56 There’s still a huge number of people
    03:58 that have not done the work, including
    03:60 hedge funds, family offices, Wall Street
    04:02 investment bankers, and all all of that
    04:05 who are looking for signals from the
    04:06 marketplace to say, “Hey, is this asset
    04:09 safe? Is it mainstream? Is it something
    04:11 that the that’s going to be widely
    04:13 adopted? Well, the number one most
    04:15 powerful largest economy in the world
    04:19 just established a strategic Bitcoin
    04:21 reserve yesterday. So, if you’re on Wall
    04:23 Street and you’re just not sure if this
    04:25 Bitcoin thing is real or if you’re just
    04:27 not sure if it’s sticking around, the
    04:29 number one most powerful country in the
    04:30 world just adopted a strategic Bitcoin
    04:32 reserve. So, if that leaves any doubt in
    04:35 anyone’s mind, I don’t know how that
    04:37 even is. Um but anyway, huge news. Uh
    04:40 the language of it is very
    04:42 wellcraftrafted. The people who crafted
    04:44 it clearly knew what they were doing
    04:47 differentiating between Bitcoin and the
    04:50 other sort of in my opinion junk digital
    04:53 assets. They clearly knew what they were
    04:55 doing by the way they structured it to
    04:57 eliminate any blowback from anyone
    04:58 complaining about their tax dollars
    04:60 being used to buy Bitcoin, but also the
    05:02 way they structured it with a strategic
    05:04 asset uh strategic reserve for Bitcoin
    05:07 and only an asset stockpile for the
    05:09 other stuff and the way they structured
    05:11 it where Bitcoin can only be bought and
    05:13 the other stuff could only be sold. Um
    05:15 anyway, so it’s it’s really brilliant.
    05:16 It’s really well written. It’s very
    05:18 straightforward and it’s just beautiful.
    05:20 So, um, all right. So, the second
    05:22 question is, if this big gamechanging
    05:25 worldwide news for Bitcoin just happened
    05:28 last night, less than 24 hours ago, how
    05:31 is Bitcoin only at $90,000 per coin? The
    05:33 answer is because markets are very
    05:35 irrational in the near term. First of
    05:37 all, Bitcoin and all other assets are
    05:40 facing huge headwinds right now with
    05:42 global uncertainty. uh bonds in Europe
    05:45 are really really really high as people
    05:48 are just worried about sort of you know
    05:50 massive recessions, massive money
    05:52 printing, massive instability. Uh
    05:54 China’s economy is having all sorts of
    05:56 issues. So slowly things are marching
    05:58 from huge problems in China now there’s
    06:00 huge problems in the in Europe and now
    06:03 we’re seeing some of those cracks and
    06:05 problems in the US economy with you know
    06:07 companies and governments just uh under
    06:10 mountains of debt. And when people get
    06:12 that way, they just start selling stuff.
    06:14 Even if it makes no sense and it’s not
    06:16 rational, they just sell stuff because
    06:18 they’re scared. So, Bitcoin is subject
    06:20 to that as long as with all other
    06:22 assets. But the other thing too
    06:24 is people have an unbelievable ability
    06:28 to have expectations higher than any
    06:31 reasonable reality. So this happens very
    06:34 frequently with financial markets where
    06:36 for example Amazon will announce that
    06:39 their profits doubled the previous
    06:41 quarter but the stock price will
    06:43 actually go down because everyone was
    06:45 hoping that the the profits would triple
    06:47 the previous quarter. So it’s almost
    06:49 like no matter what you do, it’s very
    06:52 difficult to impress anyone in financial
    06:56 markets, which is why positive news is
    06:59 often met with a drop in that assets
    07:02 value. Again, it happens all the time
    07:04 with Amazon, Tesla, Apple, Microsoft,
    07:06 Google, Nvidia, and uh the largest most
    07:10 successful companies ever. uh in the
    07:12 near term they get a stock drop because
    07:14 some new news they announced was
    07:17 slightly less amazing than whatever they
    07:20 could have hypothetically announced that
    07:21 people were hoping. So again this
    07:23 happens all the time where companies
    07:24 will announce recordings but everybody
    07:27 was expecting sort of record plus
    07:29 earnings or they instead of doubling
    07:31 they were expecting tripling. So, uh,
    07:34 apparently when the the announcement
    07:35 happened yesterday, there were a bunch
    07:37 of short-term traders. These are people
    07:39 buying and selling Bitcoin on a daily
    07:40 basis, an hourly basis, or even
    07:42 minute-by-minute, which virtually
    07:44 everyone who tries to do that loses
    07:46 money. Like more than 99% of people who
    07:49 try to do that with with any asset like
    07:51 Bitcoin lose money in the long term.
    07:53 Everybody just not everybody, the people
    07:55 who try to do it just can’t they can’t
    07:57 help themselves. They’re like degenerate
    07:59 gamblers. But anyway, so a bunch of
    08:01 people had bought Bitcoin thinking that
    08:04 when a strategic Bitcoin reserve got
    08:05 announced that the US government was
    08:07 somehow going to buy like some gazillion
    08:09 trillion dollars of it the next day.
    08:11 Well, that was never going to happen.
    08:13 There’s not the political will to do
    08:14 that right now. Um because Bitcoin is
    08:17 not well known enough among the average
    08:19 people for that to be like a huge thing
    08:21 that the government’s going to do. I
    08:22 mean, still a tiny percentage of
    08:24 Americans own Bitcoin. A tiny
    08:26 percentage. So the government was not
    08:28 going to wake up and buy a trillion
    08:30 dollars of Bitcoin this morning. That
    08:32 was never going to happen no matter
    08:33 what. So some of the people who are
    08:35 selling Bitcoin right now or last night,
    08:38 it’s it’s mostly recovered. So at
    08:40 $90,000, the dip, you know, the
    08:43 executive order was signed, the price
    08:44 dipped for a matter of hours, and now
    08:46 it’s basically back to higher than it
    08:48 was before the executive order was
    08:49 signed. But in that dip, the people who
    08:51 were selling Bitcoin were people that
    08:53 were disappointed that the government
    08:55 was not going to buy insane amounts of
    08:57 Bitcoin the very next day, thereby
    08:59 making them rich on a 24-hour trade. Um,
    09:02 again, all that’s stupid. It’s high
    09:03 school drama. What does this mean? What
    09:06 this means in the grand scheme is the
    09:08 number one most powerful country in the
    09:10 world with the largest economy in the
    09:12 world just established the Bitcoin a
    09:14 strategic Bitcoin reserve. What does
    09:16 that mean? It is now much more likely
    09:19 that companies will establish strategic
    09:21 Bitcoin reserves, that other countries
    09:24 will establish strategic Bitcoin
    09:26 reserves, that individuals will acquire
    09:29 more Bitcoin. So in the long term, this
    09:31 is insanely positive and the upside is
    09:34 incredible. In the near term, people
    09:37 will be irrational and people will do
    09:39 stupid stuff and people will have
    09:40 unrealistic expectations and people will
    09:43 misread, you know, executive orders and
    09:46 it’s just humans acting like humans. Uh
    09:49 the same thing happened uh last year
    09:52 with the exchange traded funds. The
    09:54 Bitcoin ETFs, exchange traded funds were
    09:57 the most successful ETF launch in all of
    09:60 ETF history, which is a huge deal. It
    10:02 was one of the most successful thing
    10:04 that’s ever been released on Wall Street
    10:05 was the Bitcoin exchange traded funds
    10:07 that let you buy Bitcoin easily within a
    10:10 retirement account or a brokerage
    10:12 account. So, right after that was
    10:15 announced and went live, the price
    10:17 temporarily bumped up from like 47,000
    10:20 to 49,000. And then over the next couple
    10:23 weeks it dipped all the way to under
    10:25 40,000 before rebounding and then
    10:28 ultimately going up to now 90,000 uh or
    10:31 even before uh you know before Donald
    10:34 Trump was elected it went as high as
    10:36 74,000. Okay. So the price almost
    10:39 doubled but in the near term right after
    10:41 the ETFs were announced it dipped. Well
    10:43 why does it dip? Why did it dip? because
    10:45 some short-term traders were expecting
    10:46 bit, you know, they were expecting
    10:48 literally every person on the planet to
    10:50 immediately buy unlimited amounts of
    10:52 Bitcoin the same day. Well, that was not
    10:54 going to happen. It takes people time to
    10:56 understand Bitcoin. It takes them time
    10:58 to allocate re, you know, financial
    10:60 resources, to move things around, to get
    11:02 things set up to buy the Bitcoin they
    11:04 want to buy and that takes time. So in
    11:07 the week or two after the ETFs were
    11:10 approved and started trading, there was
    11:12 a dip in the price before it recovered
    11:14 and then ultimately the price has has uh
    11:16 more than doubled now from that price.
    11:19 Um so what was going on there? Well, the
    11:21 same thing. Traders had irrational
    11:23 expectations and they got, you know,
    11:26 screwed out of their Bitcoin and they
    11:28 sold and they walked away and then it
    11:30 went way up, which is what, you know,
    11:31 what happens regularly. So, you may be
    11:33 thinking, well, why would I not wait for
    11:35 positive news and then the dip after the
    11:38 positive news to buy Bitcoin? And the
    11:40 answer is because it’s erratic because
    11:42 people are irrational. So, if you had
    11:44 done that on election night on November
    11:46 5th of last year, you would have
    11:48 completely and totally missed out
    11:50 because unlike the Bitcoin ETF launch or
    11:53 the strategic Bitcoin reserve
    11:54 announcement, there was no dip when
    11:57 Donald Trump was elected. Basically,
    11:59 Bitcoin went on a tear from 90, what was
    12:03 it? 67,000 to
    12:05 $109,000. Um, and again, now it’s at 90,
    12:08 but even if you look at it from today’s
    12:10 price of 90,000, it went on a tear from
    12:12 67,000 to $90,000. That’s a massive
    12:16 that’s a 50% or something like that. Not
    12:18 quite. Um, a massive uplift on the
    12:21 price. Um, and there was no dip. So, you
    12:25 know, sometimes there’s a dip after
    12:26 positive news because people were
    12:28 expecting something even more. Often
    12:30 there’s not a dip after positive news.
    12:32 The price just takes off. There’s
    12:34 absolutely no way of predicting whether
    12:36 the short-term traders that are
    12:38 completely irrational, there’s no way of
    12:40 predicting how irrational or which
    12:42 direction irrational they will be. Which
    12:45 means all you can do is the same thing
    12:47 you can always do, which is buy as much
    12:48 Bitcoin as you can and hold on to it as
    12:51 long as conceivably possible. One
    12:52 second.
    12:56 So, was the the news yesterday extremely
    12:58 positive? Yes. Did the price dip in the
    13:01 few hours after? Yes. For completely
    13:04 irrational reasons. Is the price back up
    13:06 to above where it was yesterday? Uh,
    13:10 yes, it is right now. Now, the stock
    13:12 market opens. It’s 8:03 a.m. The stock
    13:14 market opens in 27 minutes at 9:30
    13:17 Eastern time, which is 8:30 Central
    13:19 time. So, the stock market opens in 27
    13:22 minutes at 8:30 a.m. Central time. And I
    13:25 don’t know what’s going to happen. Uh,
    13:27 is everybody on Wall Street going to
    13:29 realize that this is a huge deal and,
    13:32 you know, buy Bitcoin? I don’t know.
    13:34 It’s probably going to take time. Is are
    13:37 the people on Wall Street going to be
    13:38 the same as the short-term traders that
    13:41 saw the Bitcoin Reserve were hoping that
    13:44 the US government was going to buy
    13:45 hundreds of billions of dollars
    13:46 instantly, and it’s not. It’s going to
    13:49 buy it slowly and in a roundabout way.
    13:51 And are people on Wall Street going to
    13:53 dump the Bitcoin at 8:30 a.m. this
    13:55 morning? I have no idea. It makes no
    13:58 sense. These short-term traders are
    13:59 completely irrational and do stuff that
    14:02 makes just no sense all the time. And
    14:04 again, it’s not unique to Bitcoin. They
    14:05 do this with every asset. So, all that
    14:08 matters is the long term. And in the
    14:09 long term, this news of a strategic
    14:11 Bitcoin reserve that was signed into law
    14:13 yesterday is a huge deal. It is a huge
    14:16 deal for the long term of Bitcoin, which
    14:18 means if I were you, you should do what
    14:21 I’m doing, which is buy as much Bitcoin
    14:22 as you possibly can and hold it for as
    14:24 long as conceivably possible. That’s how
    14:26 that works. Um, and again, in the long
    14:29 term, the the bit Bitcoin exchange
    14:32 traded funds, ETFs have been huge for
    14:33 Bitcoin. Bitcoin has more than doubled
    14:35 in price since the Bitcoin ETFs were
    14:37 approved. But it took some time, and the
    14:40 same is true here. This is a huge deal.
    14:42 It’ll take some time. Maybe it won’t
    14:44 take some time. Maybe we’ll just go
    14:46 straight up vertically for a while. I
    14:48 don’t know. Maybe it’ll dip. Maybe it’ll
    14:50 go sideways grind trying to shake
    14:53 everybody out for months before it goes
    14:55 up. I don’t know. But what does matter
    14:57 is in the long term, I believe Bitcoin
    14:59 will outperform every other asset you
    15:00 could possibly own. The news yesterday
    15:02 about the strategic Bitcoin reserve was
    15:04 very wellcraftrafted. It hit the sweet
    15:07 spot in my opinion of good public
    15:10 policy, especially for someone like me
    15:12 who does not want the US government to
    15:14 buy up all the Bitcoin or even a lot of
    15:16 the Bitcoin. Um, so it was crafted
    15:18 beautifully, very positive. I think it
    15:21 it hit the sweet spot. It’s just right.
    15:23 And uh now most importantly, probably
    15:26 the thing I’m most excited about from
    15:28 yesterday is it gets the strategic
    15:30 Bitcoin reserve out of the way because
    15:32 what I really want, as for those who
    15:35 have watched all my videos know, what I
    15:37 really want is the elimination of
    15:39 capital gains tax on Bitcoin. That would
    15:42 be a much bigger deal for Bitcoin than a
    15:45 strategic Bitcoin reserve. Um, the
    15:47 reason for that is the the number one
    15:50 thing that is holding Bitcoin back from
    15:52 being used as a transactional medium of
    15:55 exchange for people buying coffee and
    15:57 everything like that. Obviously, there’s
    15:59 infrastructure that has to be in place
    15:60 with point of sale terminals and
    16:01 everything that support Bitcoin. Uh, but
    16:04 the number one thing from a public
    16:05 policy or regulatory or tax perspective
    16:08 is capital gains tax on Bitcoin. Now, if
    16:10 you’re using the Coinbase debit card
    16:12 from Coinbase, they keep up with all of
    16:13 your taxes, so you don’t have to worry
    16:15 about it. But if you’re using any other
    16:17 Bitcoin service, um they all try to keep
    16:20 up with your taxes, but you know, it’s a
    16:21 little hit or miss. A lot of people do
    16:24 not want to buy use Bitcoin to buy stuff
    16:27 because they’re afraid of how they’re
    16:29 going to have to keep up with and track
    16:31 the capital gains on Bitcoin. So, if you
    16:33 buy it at 90,000 a coin, you you know,
    16:36 you buy a cup of coffee at $110,000 a
    16:39 coin, you have a capital gains on that
    16:41 $3 cup of coffee, you owe, you know,
    16:44 whatever it is, 10 cents of capital
    16:46 gains tax or two cents of capital gains
    16:48 tax or some microscopic amount. It’d be
    16:51 whatever it is you bought it for. Well,
    16:53 let me do the math. You bought You
    16:55 bought $3 of Bitcoin at 90,000 a coin.
    16:58 You bought a $3 and I don’t know 30 cent
    17:03 something at 100$1 100,000 a coin. Your
    17:07 gain was 30 cents. Your tax rate is 20%.
    17:11 So you owe 20% of 30 cents and so you
    17:15 owe like 6 cents. So but people don’t
    17:17 want to keep up with that. They’re like
    17:18 hey I buy I’m buying everything at a 20
    17:21 or 30 or even 50% discount on my life or
    17:24 in my case even more than that. But, you
    17:27 know, that still means when everything’s
    17:30 massively on sale, there’s still some
    17:32 tiny amount of that is capital gains
    17:33 tax. So, now that the strategic Bitcoin
    17:36 reserve is out of the way, it lets all
    17:38 of the people that were focused on the
    17:40 strategic Bitcoin reserve, the massive
    17:42 army of lobbyists and political
    17:44 consultants and lawyers and accountants
    17:46 and all of those people that are
    17:49 representing the cryptocurrency industry
    17:51 as a whole. It lets all of those people
    17:53 pivot to the elimination of capital
    17:56 gains tax on Bitcoin and any other
    17:59 cryptocurrencies that are made in
    18:01 America. Um, nobody knows where Bitcoin
    18:04 was made because nobody knows where
    18:05 Satoshi Nakamoto was from even though uh
    18:09 almost everybody speculates that he was
    18:11 an
    18:12 American. Anyway, most most of the
    18:14 candidates that could have been Satoshi
    18:16 Nakamoto are Americans. Um but anyway,
    18:19 uh all of the discussion around that
    18:21 involved Bitcoin and any other
    18:23 cryptocurrency that’s made in America
    18:25 being uh exempt from capital gains tax.
    18:29 So now the best thing about the
    18:31 strategic Bitcoin preserve, literally
    18:32 the best thing about it is it lets
    18:34 everybody pivot to the elimination of
    18:37 capital gains tax on Bitcoin and other
    18:41 made in America uh digital assets. um
    18:45 which would be a huge deal because it
    18:47 would pave the way then for Bitcoin
    18:49 being used as a transactional medium of
    18:52 exchange for day-to-day purchases
    18:54 without having to use something like the
    18:55 Coinbase debit card that’s going to
    18:57 track everything including all the taxes
    18:59 on the back end. So that is what I am
    19:01 most excited about. I am most excited
    19:03 about the strategic Bitcoin reserve to
    19:05 get it out of the way so that we can
    19:07 focus on the elimination of capital
    19:09 gains tax which will then massively
    19:12 accelerate the adoption of Bitcoin as
    19:15 not only a store of value asset uh and
    19:18 that function of money but as a
    19:20 transactional day-to-day medium of
    19:21 exchange without having to use something
    19:23 like the Coinbase debit card uh to keep
    19:26 up with all of your taxes and stuff at
    19:28 Coinbase on the back end. So huge news
    19:30 yesterday. It’ll take time for that
    19:31 effect to be to play out in the market
    19:33 and for the price to reflect it. But
    19:36 huge news yesterday with strategic
    19:38 Bitcoin reserve. Same advice as always.
    19:40 Uh even though this is not financial
    19:42 advice, buy as much Bitcoin as you can
    19:45 and hold on to it as long as conceivably
    19:47 possible. That has never been a bad

**Originally recorded 3/7/25**

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The content provided in this post is for educational purposes only. It should not be considered financial, investment, or trading advice. I am not a licensed financial advisor, and all opinions expressed are my own. Always conduct your own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Investing in Bitcoin or any other assets carries risk, and you should never invest more than you can afford to lose.

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