The US doesn't hold "reserves", it takes in taxes and spends them on things. In fact, it takes in about $.80 for every dollar it spends iirc.
Here's the Federal Reserve balance sheet: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/20241003/. To me, that reads "we have $7 trillion worth of assets and liabilities in reserves". I agree with you that this "institution" ideally shouldn't exist at all (if that's what you're arguing), but in reality, dismantling it is currently impossible. The people who control the vast majority of the world's assets also control this board, and they aren't going anywhere. Right now, there are billions of dollars' worth of assets just sitting idle, contributing neither to healthcare, the military, nor retirement funds.
No, they are not just sitting idle, the Fed needs that money (and it needs to be liquid money) to do it's job on a daily basis, in the same way a company needs a checking account.
The don't invest in stocks or other volatile illiquid assets for this reason.
The US buying Bitcoin would be a pure expense until it is sold.
Quote
I don't support taking on additional debt. I'm simply suggesting that instead of allowing (e.g.) $11 billion in gold to sit untouched, gathering dust and losing value, we should convert it into bitcoin, leave it untouched for 20 years, and then use it to fund retirement, healthcare, or similar needs. Of course, I'd also be open to giving people the gold now and letting them decide what to do with it-- that might even be the better approach, but it wasn't proposed by the people who will be the next government.
If you did that, millions of Americans would scream that the money should be spent on their favorite project instead.
This is the problem when you start playing with other people's money.
What is wrong with just letting the free market decide the price of Bitcoin? Why do you need the government to compel taxes from citizens in order to prop up the price?
***
As a total side-note--and to cross our threads here--my own theory of Satoshi implies that the US actually does currently hold ~1M btc that they don't know what to do with since spending it would reveal state secrets and they don't know how to account for this money in any case.
