Of Lionel Laurent*

Donald Trump is known to have a special appreciation for William McClinley, who served as the 25th US president from 1897 to 1901, in which he credits the development of the American economy “through duties and talent”. They now have another audience.

Trump’s proposal for a national, strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies, including assets such as Bitcoin and Solana, is reminiscent of the MacKkinley era for a monetary system based on both silver and gold.

The risk it is currently pushed is to cause a speculative bubble that will threaten the US dollar – with the forthcoming Macciney duties stimulating the suffering.

The establishment of a stock of cryptocurrencies is a unmapped area for any country, let alone for the US, and Trump was unclear in the details of his plan. However, his words suggest that he does not merely plan to create a Bitcoin stock or the possession of cryptocurrencies worth 17 BC. dollars seized by law enforcement authorities in the US.

Its explicit reference to other discreet digital assets, such as Ripple, suggests that it is planning an unprecedented market by the government, digital currencies that are extremely volatile and have been the subject of regulatory controls.

This in itself creates a scary previous one: Beyond the risk of losses, the Trump family has assisted cryptocurrencies – such as Blockchain Solana Memecoin Trump – and such ridiculousness raises concerns about fraud and corruption.

However, there are wider consequences related to the politicization of popular monetary ideas that reach back in the 1890s. Then, the “Silverites” – lost farmers who “struggled” with the decline in prices – frightened by the US attitude that considered the gold as they considered to be golden as the gold as they were. Dimetallism (a type of monetary system where the country determines the value of its currency based on both gold and silver).

That coin controversy was as painful as the evaluation of the cryptocurrencies on Thanksgiving (which is considered informally as a day of control of the market march), confronting those who regarded gold as the last of the honor and those who were in honor of them.

Just as the Trump -leaning lobby and popular followers contributed to his turn in favor of Bitcoin during his election campaign, dimetallism was a populist argument during his pre -election campaign.

The Silverites were, according to economist Robert Schiller, the ancestors of the Maga (Make America Great Again) movement, both because they “strongly supported Americanism” and because they were defamed by the establishment.

After a speech in favor of the silver by his democratic opponent, McKkinley was elected to the presidency, promising that he would “warm up” the adoption of dimetallism from around the world (virtually promised to adopt Dimetallism if it enlisted it and other great economies). It was a “mission” that promised to put an end to the alleged injustice and it was quite complicated to be considered “sought after”.

Parallels with today suggest that Trump’s stock, if actually implemented, could create a narrative with extensive implications. Political blessing in cryptocurrency markets – well -to -do with the blessing to silver in 1890 by the US government – could give the market the legitimacy of acting as a monetary alternative, good or not.

Although we are obviously far from making cryptocurrencies legal money, the tax protection offered by the purchase of digital assets will make many cryptocurrencies seem to be a safe choice.

This is at greater risk, more volatility and potentially greater inequality if judged by the fluctuations of trumpcoin or memecoin libra prices associated with Argentinean president Javier Miley.

This kind of speculative bubble that has received the blessing of politicians could ultimately be a huge test for the US dollar, which McClley ended up associated with the rule of gold – until many years after his successor, Richard Nixon, broke it.

Trump’s indirect message that people need to sell their assets in the US and buy cryptocurrencies is dangerous, especially at a time when the economy is under pressure from the duties imposed and what Ray Dadio characterizes as a “heart attack”.

It will be a test of the Gresham law, by which bad money prevails in good.

Hopefully it will never happen – because it can ultimately remind the money of another era, despite the money of the future.

*Lionel Laurent is a column of the Bloomberg Opinion column and covers issues related to the future of money market and the future of Europe