https://ift.tt/X5UBYcR US needs to embrace Bitcoin, says Pompliano

• America needs to “get very serious about [its] Bitcoin strategy as a nation-state,” said Pompliano.
• Bitcoin is a US technology “from an ethos standpoint,” he added.
• Most of the selling pressure around BTC is from short-term holders and institutional traders likely to be positioned at a loss.

Antony Pompliano, the co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital and ardent Bitcoin bull, has urged the US to take the lead in embracing Bitcoin.

Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box” anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin, Pompliano said that the United States needs to take this step on the “off-chance, that 0.01% that the US dollar ends not being the global reserve currency used by every single country in the world.”

Terming this outlook a matter of national security, the investment analyst noted that more and more US political figures have started talking about Bitcoin adoption at the national level.

However, he says the US doesn’t seem to have a strategy on how to take initiative and become the leading destination of this transformative technology.

According to him, America would do well to be the biggest holder of Bitcoin- noting that it (BTC) is the biggest decentralised digital currency not under the control of any single entity.

About 30% of Bitcoin’s hashrate is in the US following last year’s exodus of miners from China into the country and other friendly locations. But despite this, the analyst believes the US needs to have a strategy.

“We need to get very serious about what is our Bitcoin strategy as a nation state,” he told Sorkin during the “Squawk Box” show.

Stating that the US needs to take a leading role going forward, Pompliano noted:

“Bitcoin is an American technology from an ethos standpoint. It’s about censorship resistance, it’s about free speech; it’s about self sovereignty and individual rights.”

His comments came as markets across the world looked to bounce from a sharp sell-off triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Bitcoin’s value had dipped below $35k as it looked like sellers would push it to critical support around $30,000.

About Bitcoin’s price movement and the sell-off alongside stocks, Pompliano said that the pressure is mostly from short-term holders and institutional traders. These groups of BTC holders are likely to be ones selling at a loss, he opined.

Long-term holders and most people are in profit, he said, based on the realized price metric that puts the average cost basis in the mid $20,000 region.

And with Bitcoin’s bounce above $38,000 on Thursday, Pomp says a lot of the sell-off pressure might “be behind us.”