Perhaps there are further news soon: Frank Schäffler, the FDP politician I mentioned in the last post, seems to have confirmed that the FDP, in their official campaign document, will propose to work towards "openness" for a strategic reserve, both for the German Bundesbank and for the European Central Bank (according to
BTC-Echo). Schäffler has also confirmed this at his
X account.
The official campaign document has however still not been published fully, so I couldn't confirm that.Edit: Confirmed!
See here. As written above, they indeed propose "openness" for a strategic reserve on national and European levels, in addition to the approval of Bitcoin ETFs.
The FDP is a relatively small party and it's unclear if they will cross the 5% threshold to enter the parliament in the February 2025 election in Germany. However, it's again interesting that Bitcoin-related proposals are entering the political space. I'm not so much a fan of strategic reserves -- I'm actuall neutral on that topic in general, but I'd be energically against attempts of governments/Central banks to try to influence the Bitcoin protocol via this way.
For those who obviously live in some fantasies that countries that are members of the European Union and the Eurozone can buy BTC without the approval of the European Central Bank, maybe they should familiarize themselves with the monetary policy of the EU before making their statements.
While I generally agree with that, as far as I know this restriction is only valid for strategic reserves of the Central banks of the Eurozone countries.
There are however other government entities that could, in theory, invest in Bitcoin in similar ways they invest in stocks of local companies or bonds. For example municipalities or member states of federal countries, just like the US states which are now trying to create strategic Bitcoin reserves. In some cases there are local/regional restrictions to avoid too speculative investments though, which of course would also affect Bitcoin potentially.
There are also other interesting cases, this time not in the EU but from Argentina I know that state companies are mining Bitcoin since a couple of years. It seems they're however not holding but selling the coins to a service provider. But that could, in theory, be also a "backdoor" for a strategic reserve.