‘This Is an Enormous Heist’: Chris Hayes Sounds the Alarm on Republican Bill That Would Transfer $100 Billion to Bitcoin Owners

Chris Hayes broke down a plan by Republican legislators to transfer billions of dollars of taxpayer money to owners of Bitcoin in exchange for their holdings.

At issue is a bill introduced by Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) that, if enacted, would require the U.S. Treasury to buy one million Bitcoins over five years and be held for at least 20 years. As of Friday night, Bitcoin was trading at $100,000, which means purchasing that many Bitcoins at that rate would cost $100 billion.

Hayes began Friday’s edition of All In on MSNBC with a monologue noting that Republican lawmakers’ campaigns received a windfall of money from crypto evangelists who are now looking to cash in on their successful bet. Come January, the GOP will control both houses of Congress and the White House. President-elect Donald Trump previously called cryptocurrency a “scam,” but has now embraced the asset.

“They want a bailout – implicit or explicit – if the house of cards crashes down,” Hayes said while pointing out that the currency is extremely volatile. “To that end, after Republicans took back the Senate with the help of money from the crypto industry, they now have a plan to return the favor. And I want you to listen because no one is really talking about this, but the elements of the plot are just there in plain sight.”

Hayes aired a clip of Lummis speaking at a crypto event in July.

“We got a present for President Donald Trump,” she said, holding a copy of her bill. “Here it is! This is the Bitcoin Reserve bill. In the Senate of the United States, to establish a Bitcoin strategic reserve, a network of secure storage vaults, purchase program, and other programs to ensure the transparent management of Bitcoin holdings of the federal government.”

The host then went on to explain that those who wish to sell large volumes of crypto holdings regularly face a liquidity crisis.

“It’s truly one of the most audacious schemes I’ve ever seen in Congress,” he said. “Rich folks who own a lot of crypto have a problem. Cryptocurrency, and Bitcoin in particular, is a valuable asset. A single Bitcoin [is] worth over 100 grand. Some very, very wealthy people own hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin.”

Hayes then noted that David Sacks, whom Trump named “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar,” has large holdings of the asset.

“It’s not liquid like cash that you can easily spend or invest or use for practical purposes,” he went on. “It has no practical use really outside of a few gimmicks. And it’s very useful for criminal cartels. So, if you’re an investor, you are sitting on this speculative asset. You can’t actually do anything with it, but it’s worth a lot of money. What’s more, if you try to sell it all off to get rid of it, the hoards of Bitcoin on the exchanges, that’s gonna flood the market and tank the price. So what’s the solution? They’re gonna sell to the U.S. government.”

He aired another clip of Lummis explaining how her bill would mandate the purchase of one million Bitcoins, and that the government could only get rid of them before a period of 20 years to pay down the national debt.

Hayes explained:

Reduce our debt? You can’t pay the debt down in Bitcoin. Are you tracking this? Are you tracking what’s being planned and announced in person here, right? The U.S. government handing billions of dollars into the pockets of rich crypto-holders. The plan is the Bitcoin Act would have the government sell off some of its gold reserves – you know, the stuff from Fort Knox – and use the money to buy a [million] Bitcoin at current market value that would cost $100 billion.

Now, the actual price would likely be much higher because that market value would almost certainly rise as a result when a new buyer enters the market and boosts the price of the asset the buyer is now legally obligated to buy.

This is an enormous heist. They’re just backing the truck up to the government in front of all of us. A massive bailout to the crypto world. The opportunity to turn a speculative asset into real cash on your dime. And presumably, David Sacks, as the crypto czar, will help usher that plan through.

And there is a real irony here for a long time, as long as I’ve been covering crypto, which is over a decade, advocates have sold crypto as this libertarian project. We don’t need government, we don’t need banks, we don’t need financial intermediaries, we don’t need regulation. Here’s Sacks making that point on a podcast two years ago.

[CLIP OF DAVID SACKS]: There is a huge risk of currency debasement when the government is in control, and particularly when you have world reserve currency. There’s just such an enormous temptation to print money to finance your budget and to rack up loans that become unpayable… What Bitcoin offers is a different kind of currency where it’s not backed by a government. It’s backed by math. It’s backed by encryption. And so, you don’t have to trust the government.

HAYES: All of that lofty rhetoric goes right out the window, though, when Republicans decide they want the government to initiate a massive upward transfer of wealth and bail out the crypto industry.