According to Blake Masters, a lawyer, venture capitalist and upcoming candidate for a senatorial seat in Arizona in the midterm elections scheduled for 2022, China’s recent ban on Bitcoin would be an opportunity for the US to make the opposite choice and have a competitive advantage over China in this area.
Summary
Blake Masters runs for Senate seat and supports Bitcoin
He tweeted on Monday.
“Let’s do the opposite. The US government should buy a strategic reserve of Bitcoin — Fort Nakamoto, the new Fort Knox”
Masters concludes with the announcement that his fundraiser will also accept donations in Bitcoin.
Masters is managing director of Thiel Capital, an investment company founded by Peter Thiel, one of the co-founders of PayPal, and last April he decided to run for the Arizona Senate seat for the Republican party.
Masters has always been a big supporter of former President Donald Trump, but differs from him in that he is a big supporter of new technologies and cryptocurrencies.
Pat Toomey and Bitcoin
Masters’ Twitter advice follows on the heels of another Pennsylvania senator, Pat Toomey, who was even more eloquent and explicit than Masters 4 days ago, tweeting that:
“China’s authoritarian crackdown on crypto, including Bitcoin, is a big opportunity for the U.S. It’s also a reminder of our huge structural advantage over China”.
Pat Toomey, who is a member of the US Senate Banking and Finance Committee, also added that:
“Beijing is so hostile to economic freedom they cannot even tolerate their people participating in what is arguably the most exciting innovation in finance in decades. Economic liberty leads to faster growth, and ultimately, a higher standard of living for all.”
Could China’s crypto ban be an opportunity?
The ban imposed on cryptocurrency trading by the Central Bank of China and the operation of all exchanges, outlawing all major digital currencies, raises the question of whether this initiative will actually harm the wider market.
According to Masters and Toomey, this initiative could ultimately represent an opportunity for investors.
As far as mining is concerned, the ban imposed by the Chinese authorities in May has caused miners to flee to other countries, such as Texas, Uzbekistan and Canada, where the cost of energy is more advantageous.
Its impact on the market and on operations was soon absorbed without major trauma for the prices of the main digital currencies.
The announcement of the trading ban led to a momentary market crash, but without causing the expected panic selling.
Many operators, like in the case of mining, are organizing themselves to overcome this ban without excessive repercussions. The market has therefore been quick to react to news that would have sent investors into a panic a few years ago.
Craig Johnson
This shows that the market has reached a certain maturity and less volatility. Craig Johnson, a market analyst at independent US investment bank Piper Sandler, told CNBC’s microphones that the latest announcement is much more smoke than fire:
“The whole discussion that this is going to be made illegal, I don’t think that’s ultimately going to play out. We’ve heard this time in and time out”.
It is likely that he is alluding to previous attempts that occurred in 2013 and 2017 to get control over digital currencies from that country’s authority, which then led to no conclusion.
For many traders and analysts, this news would be an excellent opportunity to buy Bitcoin and the major cryptocurrencies at cheaper prices while waiting for the next rebound, which many predict will take place in the short term, as has been the case on previous occasions when similar episodes have occurred.
Sathvik Vishwanath, co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange Unocoin, said two days ago:
“Some panic selling will happen, but it is a knee-jerk reaction. It will get corrected to some extent. One must realise this is not the first time something like this has happened”.
