So, there’s this new proposal that someone actually submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC), you know, to their brand new Crypto Task Force. This proposal, from a Maximilian Staudinger, is trying to argue that XRP should be considered a “strategic financial asset” for the good ol’ U.S. of A. — and let me tell you, the “logic” and math they’re using are… well, let’s just say questionable.

Now, full disclosure here: I’m here to set the record straight. XRP? Strategic asset? Nope, not buying it. And honestly, this whole proposal? It’s built on some pretty shaky ground at best.

Let’s dive into what this proposal is actually claiming. Staudinger’s saying there’s a whopping $5 trillion just sitting around in U.S. Nostro accounts – those are basically the accounts banks use for international payments. His big idea is that if a few things happen – and they are *big* “ifs” – like the SEC suddenly deciding XRP is a payment network, the Justice Department giving banks the green light to use XRP, and the Federal Reserve *mandating* banks to use XRP for liquidity… then, BAM! 30% of that $5 trillion, so $1.5 trillion, would magically become available. And guess what the U.S. government should do with that windfall? Buy 25 million bitcoin at $60,000 each.

Okay, so where do we even begin with how this just doesn’t add up? Let’s break down why this whole idea is a bit of a head-scratcher.

First things first, Nostro accounts are simply accounts that U.S. banks have in other countries. I’m scratching my head trying to figure out the leap in logic where these banks, which are basically domestic, would just hand over U.S. dollars – the ones XRP is supposed to be replacing – to the government so Uncle Sam can then buy bitcoin. It’s a bit of a convoluted round trip, isn’t it?

And here’s another thing that’s conveniently glossed over: where are these banks going to get the XRP to replace those dollars in the first place? It seems pretty obvious they’d have to go out and buy it, right? Which means that $1.5 trillion would likely end up being *absorbed by XRP*, not bitcoin. Even if Ripple, the folks behind XRP, wanted to just hand out XRP to banks, they simply couldn’t. They only hold around $100 billion worth of XRP – seriously short of the $1.5 trillion needed.

Let’s even pretend, just for a second, that bitcoin somehow dropped to $60,000. Even at that price, the moment the U.S. government started scooping up 25 million bitcoin, the price would skyrocket faster than you can say “bull run.”

And lastly, here’s a pretty major detail that seems to have been missed: there’s this thing called a hard cap for bitcoin. Only 21 million will ever exist, and around 4 million are already lost forever. It’s kind of Bitcoin 101 in the crypto world. So, suggesting the U.S. government could buy 25 million? That’s just… well, silly. If this proposal author was even remotely serious, maybe they’d suggest buying 15 million bitcoin at $100,000 each (though, spoiler alert, the math *still* wouldn’t work out).

When you look at how fundamentally flawed the thinking behind this proposal is, it’s really hard to take the idea of XRP being a “strategic asset” seriously. Plus, let’s be real, why would the U.S. government even consider making an asset strategic when two-thirds of its entire supply is still controlled by the very organization that created it? It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is a totally different story. It’s a global asset, spread out everywhere, used by people all over the world as actual money and a way to store value. Plus, the Bitcoin network is kept running by tens of thousands of nodes and is basically unhackable, thanks to the insane amount of energy – about 0.4% of the world’s total energy consumption – that secures it. (For comparison, the XRP network is run by 828 nodes and… well, uses basically no energy for security.) These are the kinds of things that make bitcoin a logical choice as a reserve asset, which, by the way, is how the U.S. government is now officially thinking about it.

So, fingers crossed, the SEC is already seeing through this, and won’t waste too much time even thinking about Mr. Staudinger’s proposal. Let’s hope they stick with what actually makes sense.

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.