The concerns were in response to Michael Saylor’s suggestion that the U.S. should quadruple its planned strategic reserve and exert influence over the Bitcoin network.
Saylor Calls for U.S. To Purchase up to 25% of Total Supply
Bitcoin educator Anita Posch, founder of non-profit organization Bitcoin for Fairness posted a warning on X about the centralization risk posed by governments and corporations that are setting up bitcoin treasuries.
Posch’s post came on the heels of a bold suggestion by Microstrategy Chairman Michael Saylor that the U.S. government should purchase “20 or 25 percent of the Bitcoin network” and “catalyze” its development. Saylor suggested the idea during a recent interview with Yahoo Finance.
Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis’s plan which may end up being implemented by the Trump administration is to purchase one million bitcoin (BTC) representing roughly 5% of the total supply. Saylor’s new idea, however, quadruples that amount and appears to suggest exerting influence over protocol development.
“Governments or corporations holding large amounts of bitcoin could try to influence human consensus and change the code to their wishes,” said Posch. “And please stop with the idea that Bitcoin will end wars. It won’t.”
Saylor never explicitly said Bitcoin will end wars, but he did imply that if the U.S. is able to influence the network in some way, countries like China and Russia would become less adversarial.
“Buy 20 or 25% of the Bitcoin network on behalf of the U.S. government, catalyze the development of that world reserve capital network, and then let all the Chinese and the Russians and the foreigners sell all their other assets and buy bitcoin,” Saylor said. “And then the money flows into the United States,” he added.
Posch isn’t the first and certainly won’t be the last to raise concerns about centralization within the Bitcoin network. Similar warnings regarding oligopolies in bitcoin mining, BTC custody, and protocol development have been issued in the past.
Microstrategy currently holds 423,650 BTC equivalent to more than 2% of the total supply.
“I’m going to be buying more bitcoin. I’m going to be buying bitcoin at the top forever,” Saylor said during the interview. “I’m sure that I will be buying bitcoin at a million a coin, probably $1 billion a day of bitcoin at a million a coin.”
