US Senate Candidate Is a Hodler, Sees Bitcoin as Alternative Store of Value to US Dollar

US Senate candidate Cynthia Lummis is pro-bitcoin. She bought her first bitcoin during her time in Congress. Now she calls herself a hodler and sees the cryptocurrency as a viable alternative store of value to the US dollar.

Bitcoin Advocate in the Senate

Cynthia Lummis served Wyoming as a conservative Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives for eight years. She is now in the running for the U.S. Senate, with the endorsement of President Donald Trump.

Lummis revealed during the third annual Wyoming Blockchain Stampede on Sunday that she is a bitcoin “hodler,” having purchased her first BTC in 2013. She elaborated:

It was during my time in Congress that I first learned about bitcoin. I was struck by how innovative bitcoin is with its decentralized public ledger and a fixed supply.

While serving as State Treasurer, Lummis was always hunting for a good store of value because one of her duties was to invest the Permanent Wyoming Mineral Trust Fund. Noting that the state of Wyoming has “significant savings” due to its vast mineral resources, she revealed that the state’s treasurer currently manages around $20 billion in savings spread across nine investment pools.

“Knowing that there’re only going to be 21 million bitcoin makes it an attractive store of value,” Lummis explained. “I have long worried about the Federal Reserve’s program of quantitative easing and the amount of debt on which our nation’s economy’s future rests,” she further shared, adding that the U.S. has created $3 trillion more in debt since March.

Citing economist Nassim Taleb saying last week that “The most underestimated risk in financial markets today is that the dollar ceases to be a reserve currency,” Lummis stressed that this is something we should all worry about. She aims to address this issue to prevent the dollar from losing its world’s reserve currency status. Taleb is not the only one who has warned about this problem. Goldman Sachs made a similar warning in July.

“I want to address America’s debt when I go to the U.S. Senate. But I also want to protect the value that America’s workers generate through their labor. We cannot continue to debase our currency and expect that the American workers’ wages and savings will be unaffected,” she continued, emphasizing the importance of preventing American savers’ rapid loss in purchasing power. The former US representative opined:

Bitcoin to me has shown great promise and may rise as a viable alternative store of value to the US dollar both on the institutional level and the personal level.

Lummis then revealed how she got into bitcoin, stating:

I bought my first bitcoin in 2013 because I believe in the economic power of scarcity and the potential for bitcoin to address some of the manipulations in our financial system … Now I am a hodler and I hodl because like gold I want to preserve the relative value of my labor over time.

She proceeded to talk about Wyoming’s achievements in the blockchain and cryptocurrency area, giving the example of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, which recently obtained a banking charter and established an office in Wyoming. She also outlined some concerns over anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) laws that hinder innovation but are not effective at preventing money laundering.