Golden Finance reports that former New York Fed President Bill Dudley said that the price of Bitcoin has risen by more than 40% since Trump won the U.S. presidential election, in part because people hoped that he would support the establishment of a government reserve of this cryptocurrency. He supported the idea during his campaign, and pro-cryptocurrency lawmakers have also proposed ways to make it happen. It’s hard to imagine how this would benefit most Americans. But what benefits does building a Bitcoin reserve have for governments or people who don’t hold Bitcoin? Nothing good comes of it. There is no exit strategy, so the aim is to drive up inflation rather than create value for the government - which will be forced to hold volatile tokens that generate no revenue. To fund the purchases, the Treasury either has to borrow (thus raising the cost of servicing the debt) or the Fed has to create money (thus fueling inflation). The latter would be little different from the Fed monetizing U.S. government debt (as would instructing the Fed to tap the government's gold reserves under proposed legislative legislation in Congress). If the Trump administration really wants to support the nascent cryptocurrency industry, it should create a set of laws and regulations that will allow it to develop and operate safely. (Golden Ten)