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Did Trump Hijack Bitcoin to Save the Dollar? | Simply Originals · Simply Bitcoin

• 0:00
  A president walks on stage, says don't sell your Bitcoin by
• 0:07
  heart, never sell your Bitcoin. And the crowd roars.
• 0:16
  That's right, isn't it? Huh.
• 0:18
  That's right. Months later, the fine print
• 0:21
  turns Fiat dollar IO U's into global rails.
• 0:25
  Was that an embrace of Bitcoin or the oldest trick in politics?
• 0:30
  Use the movement, keep the power, many are asking, and we
• 0:34
  are today as well. Is Trump really the Bitcoin
• 0:37
  president or the stable coin president?
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  Well, let's find out. And the regulatory weaponization
• 0:48
  against digital assets. The Biden administration's
• 0:51
  actions did nothing other than publish and punish innovators.
• 0:56
  And that all of you have made it here today is really a testament
• 1:00
  to your fortitude. Much of Treasury's
• 1:03
  responsibility in this order relates to the tax code and
• 1:06
  determinations around risk weightings.
• 1:08
  And I'm here to assure you that we are going to work with the
• 1:12
  controller, the currency, the IRS, and we're going to resend
• 1:16
  and all applicable previous guidance.
• 1:20
  And we are going to put a lot of thought into the stablecoin
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  regime. And as President Trump has
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  directed, we are going to keep the US the dominant reserve
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  currency in the world. And we will use stable coins to
• 1:34
  do that. Thank you.
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  So here's what happened. The man walked into the Bitcoin
• 1:40
  conference in Nashville. He pledged to reverse anti
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  Bitcoin in crypto policy. And then he signed a law that
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  makes stable coins the preferred tool of American Financial
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  Policy. Nice photo op and a hell of a
• 1:51
  policy shift. But let's not confuse stagecraft
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  with strategy. What if Bitcoin, that hard,
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  scarce, permissionless money, was being used as the bait?
• 2:01
  What if the prize wasn't Bitcoin at all, but something far more
• 2:04
  useful to the state, A digital dollar that everyone uses
• 2:09
  everywhere, all the time? Well, that is the thesis Alex
• 2:13
  Gladstein lays out. Trump rode the Bitcoin wave not
• 2:17
  to hand power to the people, but to extend the dollars reach, to
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  make dollars digital, programmable, and universal.
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  Why does this matter? Because Bitcoin is at root a bet
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  against the state, it's monopoly on money.
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  It's a new way of saying your bank, your government, your
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  Ledger, none of them get to decide when your money is worth
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  less. Stable coins different animal
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  their dollars in code. They keep the dollar and the
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  dollar keeps the power. If the dollar stays king, the US
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  can keep borrowing and the people who manage that borrowing
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  keep getting richer. That's not theory, that's
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  politics. Trump signed the so-called
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  Genius Act, which provides stable coins a legal pathway,
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  and at the signing, of course, were stable coin insiders.
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  That's an alignment of political power and private capital.
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  I wonder what Ron Paul would call that.
• 3:08
  Alex Gladstein says Donald Trump is not the Bitcoin president.
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  He's the stable coin president. He's blunt, and he's saying what
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  a lot of people have suspected. Trump is cozying up to the
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  Bitcoin crowd because the Bitcoin crowd is big, loud,
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  useful. It's good theater.
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  But the backstage deal looks different.
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  Look at who showed up again. Tech capital payment firms, and
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  yes, stable coin issuers. Tether, Circle payment networks
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  talking about integrating dollar tokens into their rails.
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  That's the same dollar, just faster, borderless, and now
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  under legal cover. Which on its face, could be a
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  good thing for efficiency. But for sovereignty, For
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  privacy, for choice? That's where this story gets
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  messy. Stablecoin issuers already hold
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  enormous amounts of short term U.S.
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  Treasuries and have become major buyers in the market.
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  That's not a conspiracy, it's docketed financial flows.
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  Stablecoin issuance helps create a demand for Treasury debt.
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  That's how a digital dollar can shore up borrowing.
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  So the question is a simple one. Is the administration building a
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  bridge to Bitcoin or building rails for the dollar to dominate
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  the world now in digital form? And who benefits?
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  Well, let's look at the motive mechanism in the playbook.
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  Motive. the US is sitting on trillions of debt.
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  The power of the dollar is not guaranteed.
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  If you can make the dollar, the Internet's native money,
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  accessible to anyone with a phone, you shore up demand for
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  treasuries and you export the dollar's utility.
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  Nice trick. And for private players who run
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  the rails, new fees, new custody, new custody fees and
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  huge balance sheets that sit in treasuries.
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  And that's power turned into profit.
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  It's an extremely dangerous Hail Mary by the US government.
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  Yes, this is a way to fund an ever increasing U.S. debt by
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  printing U.S. dollars in the form of stable coins.
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  But we are going to be exporting to the entire world dollars that
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  are outside of the SWIFT system. And why is that really
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  important? The SWIFT system enables foreign
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  governments, foreign banks, to capture dollars before they ever
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  get to the people of foreign nations, right?
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  So imagine you try to send dollars to somebody in Egypt.
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  Those dollars get intercepted at the banking level through the
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  SWIFT system. Those dollars are then
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  confiscated by the banks and the Egyptian government, and in
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  return you get their local Egyptian currency.
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  That can be circumvented with stable coins because stable
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  coins don't go on the SWIFT system, they go on crypto rails.
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  And that means that anybody with a cell phone can get their hands
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  on USDTUS, any stable coin, right.
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  And as those stable coins go throughout the world, what
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  happens to the Egyptian currency as U.S. dollars enter their
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  country in a way in which they they can't stop them, they can't
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  steal them, right? Well, then everybody in that
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  country who's sick and tired of their 50% inflation rate will
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  adopt U.S. dollars and then those dollars via stable coins
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  become their default currency. But the the effect of that is to
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  hyperinflate away their local currency that causes their
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  government to fall. Whatever regime we're talking
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  about. There's 180 currencies, I think
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  in the world. So figure 170 of them are
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  absolute garbage. Imagine all 170 sort of
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  disappearing at the same time in history.
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  What would that do to the world? How?
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  How destabilizing is the stable coin?
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  That clip says it plainly. Financial power is geopolitical
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  power. Dollars move dollars by friends.
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  Dollars punish enemies. If stable coins become the
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  rails, the US extends that reach without firing a shot.
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  Convenient mechanism legislation plus regulation plus corporate
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  rails. Pass a law that legitimizes
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  stable coins, encourage payment companies to adopt them, make
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  them compatible with banking tech, and suddenly your money
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  sits in a token, not a bank. That token can be moved across
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  borders in seconds, used by merchants, integrated into
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  wallets, and the Treasury gets a backdoor of demand for its
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  bonds. That's how you expand the
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  dollar's network effect without soldiers on the ground.
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  But here's the twist. The same rails that help
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  Americans buy coffee could also help authorities surveil, freeze
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  or confiscate. That's the trade off the Bitcoin
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  crowd fears because stable coins can be KYC D and companies can
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  be competitive held to comply with state demands.
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  We've already seen stable coin freezes at law enforcement
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  requests. That's not speculation, that's
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  precedent. And maybe this is a sign of
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  things to come. Next, Europe, Christine Lagarde
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  and the ECB are not talking about private stable coins.
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  They're talking about central bank digital currency, a digital
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  euro under state control. And digital ID is the passport
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  to that programmable money. Look at this.
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  No digital ID. Well, then you could lose access
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  to welfare, pension, public services.
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  That's what we're hearing and seeing across the Atlantic.
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  We know the government is looking at digital ID cards at
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  the moment. How would that help prevent the
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  situation that we're in now? Well, Keir Starmer, our Prime
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  Minister, has said we are looking at what other countries
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  have done to bring in a sort of digital accreditation.
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  I think there's real actually benefits right across here from
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  obviously dealing with illegal working, but also actually
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  imagine if your viewers imagine that they had one credential
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  that would allow them to access all the different government
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  services and our public services do.
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  I'm sure many of your viewers often tear their hair out with
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  all the different numbers and passwords of the different bits
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  of government that they have to deal with.
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  And I, I do think this could be a real benefit here for people
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  who are here and working legally and accessing our public
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  services. If there was there was 1 route
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  in as well as the benefits it could have with illegal
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  migration, we're looking at that.
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  I think it is an interesting idea that other countries have
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  taken forward and we want to learn from what they've done.
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  Digital euro under central control plus digital ID equals a
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  system where access can be managed, attract and if
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  necessary, withdraw. That is a recipe for tyrannical
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  control. The next financial crisis And
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  the question mark is intended to express that we're not trying to
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  trigger, to provoke, but to actually do everything we, we,
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  we can to anticipate, prevent and examine what the
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  circumstances are that would actually trigger such a a
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  crisis. And I think we must keep 2
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  points in mind when thinking about the topic.
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  First, throughout the post war era, the global financial system
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  has been in constant transformation and the pace has
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  only accelerated with advances in technology.
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  And 2nd, what appears new often simply reflects old risks,
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  except with a different costume and in a different form.
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  And here I'm reminded of Professor Carmen Heiner and
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  Kenneth Rogoffs and the history of financial crisis.
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  This time is different. The book's subtle subtitle,
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  tellingly, is not. It's different, says 8 Centuries
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  of Financial Folly. After 8 centuries of experience,
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  I think it's fair to say that this time it is never different.
• 10:35
  And that is why research plays such an important role in
• 10:38
  helping to safeguard financial stability.
• 10:42
  Through rigorous analysis and a solid understanding of the past,
• 10:45
  research helps us see how innovation advances and reshapes
• 10:49
  the economy, while also bringing potential risk into sharper
• 10:53
  focus so that policy makers can address them proactively and
• 10:57
  hopefully anticipate them and prevent them.
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  Research is particularly vital in helping us to understand the
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  implications of the profound transformations that have
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  reshaped the financial system since the global financial
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  crisis, which is a relatively short span of time.
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  If you look at the 8th centuries on the one hand and you know the
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  15 years or so on the other hand, and one of the major
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  structural shifts in the financial system over those past
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  two decades has been the growing footprint not so much of banks
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  but of non banks, financial institutions.
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  Lagarde's words are technocratic.
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  Anticipate, prevent, examine, translation.
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  They're probably going to build tools to manage economies in
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  real time. Again, you can spin this as
• 11:44
  responsible central banking, or you can call it what it is,
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  putting the monetary switch in a place where politicians and
• 11:51
  bureaucrats can flip it. We're not imagining this in
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  Britain. They've started rating accounts,
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  HMRC taking funds, and plans for digital ID rollouts are being
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  reanimated. What does a state with digital
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  identity plus programmable money want?
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  Compliance. Control, predictability.
• 12:08
  That's the opposite of bitcoins Promise.
• 12:11
  But before we keep going in, before you tell me to GFY in the
• 12:15
  comments, look at our likes 3 or 4 times.
• 12:18
  Maybe I'll pump those numbers up.
• 12:19
  Those are rookie numbers in this racket.
• 12:21
  Let's take a quick second for our sponsors who keep this show
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• 13:12
  All right back to it. Who wins if the stable coins
• 13:16
  win? The state digital authorities,
• 13:18
  the payment incumbents, the new custodians.
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  Who loses? Privacy, self sovereignty, and
• 13:24
  anyone who wants money that cannot be permissioned.
• 13:27
  Bitcoin wins only if Bitcoin remains the best default for
• 13:31
  those who want to be free of state permission.
• 13:34
  But the path to mass adoption of Bitcoin may be paved in stable
• 13:38
  coins on ramps that are dollar based.
• 13:40
  That helps adoption numbers and it helps the dollar.
• 13:43
  That's the tension that Gladstein highlights.
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  A victory for adoption could also be a victory for the dollar
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  hegemony indefinitely. You got to remember the reserve
• 13:52
  currencies changed every 80 or 100 years, you know, like it
• 13:55
  used to be the Portuguese escudo and the British pound and you
• 13:58
  know, so. No one's ever really lasted.
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  For more than. Let's call it a hundred 110
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  years. Yeah.
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  So, you know, it's not coming up on our time.
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  Inconceivable that the dollar will be supplanted.
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  I think it'll take a decade or two, you know.
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  So I don't think it's going to happen overnight, but you're
• 14:12
  starting to see it. the US not having a strategic Bitcoin
• 14:16
  reserve. Wyoming has a strategic reserve
• 14:21
  as well. And then you're hearing other
• 14:23
  countries start to do it. The UAE and other countries in
• 14:27
  the Gulf are starting to do that.
• 14:29
  And I think the big one will be countries that are in those like
• 14:33
  the Gulf. They're all paid to the US
• 14:34
  dollar. They're all very tightly in line
• 14:36
  with the United States. But the countries that are
• 14:39
  antagonistic to the United States, like China or Russia, I
• 14:42
  think it's it's inevitable that they'll ultimately put a good
• 14:46
  chunk of their reserves into Bitcoin.
• 14:48
  Because if you think about it, China has, I think a trillion
• 14:51
  dollars of U.S. Treasuries.
• 14:53
  You know, Scott Basking can just cancel that, right?
• 14:55
  Like, I mean, it's really pretty crazy to have your entire
• 14:58
  country's life savings in an asset that your potential
• 15:02
  adversary could literally just cancel.
• 15:04
  So I think within a decade, I'm not going to say it's going to
• 15:07
  happen overnight, countries like that will have started to save
• 15:11
  in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
• 15:13
  There's a chess board here. China, Russia, nations
• 15:16
  accumulating Bitcoin as a strategic reserve. the US
• 15:19
  answers with dollar tokens, legal frameworks and corporate
• 15:23
  partners not by stepping off the field, but by building a
• 15:26
  sturdier fence. This is a currency war game
• 15:29
  theory. You want friends, you give them
• 15:31
  a currency they can use. the US has always done that.
• 15:34
  We we know the IMF with paper dollars and now the same
• 15:37
  strategy goes digital and now for a breaking announcement.
• 15:41
  The big announcement that was supposed to change everything
• 15:45
  was in fact a nothing burger. Not even going to talk about it
• 15:48
  now yesterday, Jerome Powell reminded markets the Fed still
• 15:52
  has options. Tariffs are one thing long run
• 15:55
  inflation expectations another. the Fed is watching rate cuts on
• 15:59
  the horizon. Maybe that's liquidity that
• 16:02
  chases assets, including Bitcoin.
• 16:04
  And if the Fed eases and the the dollar weakens even a little
• 16:07
  bit, demand for hard assets will rise.
• 16:09
  But here's the shady side. Stable coins can channel dollar
• 16:13
  demand even in a weak dollar regime.
• 16:15
  They serve as a bridge between a weak currency and global
• 16:18
  liquidity needs, again helping the Treasury and the dollar's
• 16:22
  footprint. So whether the rates rise or
• 16:24
  fall, the architecture being built matters.
• 16:27
  Seven countries now have national Bitcoin reserves, the
• 16:31
  US, El Salvador, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Bhutan,
• 16:35
  and the UAE. That's not trivial.
• 16:37
  Nations are hedging. Meanwhile, private stable coins
• 16:39
  are increasing demand for treasuries to forces sovereign
• 16:43
  accumulation and private dollar rails. 1 favors decentralized
• 16:47
  exit. The other preserves US leverage,
• 16:50
  and game theory says both can escalate.
• 16:53
  And if you think this is isolated, you're not paying
• 16:55
  attention. So here's the final thing I want
• 16:58
  you to ask yourself. The president stands in front of
• 17:00
  Bitcoiners, promises to reverse anti Bitcoin and crypto policy,
• 17:04
  and signs a bill that makes private dollar tokens
• 17:07
  legitimate. Is that the act of an orange man
• 17:10
  who wants to make Bitcoin the people's money?
• 17:13
  Or is it the act of an orange man who wants to make the dollar
• 17:17
  even more dominant just in code? Is Trump the Bitcoin president
• 17:21
  or is he the stable coin president?
• 17:23
  That's the question tell us what you think drop your take in the
• 17:27
  comments and before we wrap up, grab those tickets to mining
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• 17:49
  Hey, hope you guys enjoyed this one.
• 17:50
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  daily. Love you guys, catch you
• 17:59
  tomorrow. If you.
• 18:01
  Prefer to go down with the ship. You.