Lawrence Summers, former Treasury Secretary under Clinton, sharply criticized Donald Trump's proposal to create a strategic bitcoin reserve. This position comes in a context where the debate on the regulation of cryptocurrencies is intensifying within the American political class.
Former US Treasury boss attacks Trump's Bitcoin project
It was during an interview with Bloomberg TV on December 6 that Lawrence Summers expressed his categorical opposition to the project. The former Treasury secretary, who led the department between 1999 and 2001, compared the initiative to traditional strategic reserves, emphasizing the lack of economic justification for such a measure.
“ I understand the need for a national oil reserve or the historic stockpiling of gold at Fort Knox, but why would the government accumulate a barren stockpile of Bitcoin?“, he argued.
Trump's proposal mainly concerns the 198,000 bitcoins already seized by the US government, representing an estimated value of more than $19 billion according to Arkham Intelligence.
Several Republican figures support this initiative, notably Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, who goes further by proposing to expand these reserves to 1 million BTC, or around 5% of the total supply.
A broader debate on crypto regulation
Despite his harsh criticism of the national reserve project, Summers takes a more nuanced position on crypto regulation in general. The former Treasury secretary, who also advised crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group in 2016, acknowledges that “ crypto has probably been over-regulated by overzealous regulators”.
The debate is part of a broader context of American national debt reaching $36 trillion. While some, like Senator Lummis, see the bitcoin reserve as a potential solution, other experts remain skeptical.
Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, points out that while a bitcoin reserve may have some benefits, it does not solve the fundamental problem of federal deficits.
Trump's proposal thus appears to be a point of crystallization in the broader debate on the role of cryptos in American monetary policy and the search for solutions to the country's growing debt.
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