Could Central Banks Embrace Bitcoin as a Reserve Asset?

Central bankers spend their careers worrying about risks that most investors ignore. In 2024, they bought a record 1,045 tons of gold as insurance against globally swelling sovereign debt loads and growing geopolitical fractures.

Those same issues might even be leading a few outliers to consider another hedge asset: Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC).

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What sounded foolish a decade ago now ticks three boxes every reserve manager studies -- specifically, the asset's limited supply, its round-the-clock liquidity, and its (partial) insulation from certain geopolitical risks. If gold hoards are a vote of no-confidence in fiat currencies, central banks holding a sliver of Bitcoin would be a vote of no-confidence in the entire monetary status quo. Let's see why they're more likely to be casting that vote right now than ever before.

This coin is ready to be held as a reserve asset

Let's start with Bitcoin's scarcity.

There can only ever be 21 million Bitcoin, per its protocol (about 19.9 million now are in circulation). It gets harder to mine Bitcoin on a regular basis thanks to its halving mechanics. So there will probably not ever be a large influx of freshly mined coin dumped on the market, indicating that it will likely retain a semblance of price stability in the long term.

Other reserve assets, like gold or silver, are not necessarily constrained as precisely.

Image source: Getty Images.

It's true that precious metals can't be printed like fiat currencies can be, but new deposits can be discovered if there's an incentive to look for them, refining methods can be improved, substitutes can be used, or recycling efforts can be undertaken. All those possibilities make it harder to know with confidence that the supply of and demand for those metals will remain relatively constrained in the long run, even if there will probably not be any big surprises in the short term.

Another factor is that the coins do not carry any counterparty risk in the same way as other reserve assets, like U.S. Treasury bills or other sovereign bonds. There are no cash flows associated with holding Bitcoin, nor is there any central issuing authority. So it isn't possible for anyone to default on cash flows and tank the price of the asset. Nor is it possible for any issuer to debase their currency to reduce the value that they owe to holders.

In the same vein, the network is politically neutral, at least for now. The miners that make up the network are distributed around the globe. Furthermore, there's a strong taboo against allowing any single miner or cartel of miners to accumulate enough mining power to control the network on their own, and substantial technical barriers to prevent such an outcome from happening in the first place.

Again, there is no issuer that can devalue Bitcoin to fund their deficit spending, and no single military can blockade its ledgers, nor seize control of it. For smaller economies nursing dollar-denominated debts, that neutrality is attractive insurance. That's why it's becoming a more attractive asset for central bankers.

Early adoption is already underway

There are already a handful of countries accumulating Bitcoin for the above reasons. El Salvador now holds 6,170 bitcoins worth about $650 million after fresh purchases in May. Governments altogether control 463,741 coins, or roughly 2.3% of the supply, via intentional accumulation or law enforcement seizures. The U.S. tops that list with 207,189 coins, though the country's Federal Reserve is not officially on board with accumulating it.

Ukraine's parliament just introduced a bill instructing its central bank to hold Bitcoin alongside gold once post-war reconstruction begins. In January, the Czech National Bank governor floated putting up to 5% of its 146 billion euros ($168 billion) of reserves into Bitcoin to diversify away from dollars and euros.

Even if these countries never actually follow through on these plans, the public debate itself legitimizes the asset as something that's stable enough for sovereigns to hold intentionally.

Skeptics still have control of the narrative

As bullish as it is for the coin's holders that governments and central banks are looking for exposure to Bitcoin, the idea of it being a commonly held reserve asset is still controversial, even if it's no longer fringe.

Bitcoin is still fairly volatile compared to an asset like gold. As a result, key central banks don't want to touch it. The Swiss National Bank dismissed Bitcoin in April, citing stability concerns.

Nonetheless, if even a handful of central banks eventually follow El Salvador's lead, the structural demand could absorb a lot of the coin's floating supply each year. That isn't enough to spike prices overnight, but it could create a steady amount of buying pressure that compounds Bitcoin's long-run scarcity narrative significantly. Investors betting on the asset today are therefore front-running a potential sovereign buyer of last resort, which is to say they're getting exposure to a similar upside that gold already enjoys.

For now, Bitcoin remains a speculative reserve candidate, not a mainstream holding. Yet the very discussion marks a shift in monetary imagination that's just starting to pick up speed.

Central banks won't replace their gold bars with cold wallets tomorrow, but the door is now open, and that's a smart reason to consider buying the asset today.

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Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.