Congressman Nick Begich, a first-term Republican from Alaska and former tech founder, sat down with the Bitcoin Policy Institute and Bitcoin Magazine to discuss his American Reserve Modernization Act (ARMA) and why the U.S. government should treat bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset.
Begich has held bitcoin since January 2013, when he bought 440 BTC through Mt. Gox as a hedge against dollar devaluation for his software company.
He lost those coins in the exchange’s collapse but eventually recovered a positive outcome through the bankruptcy process.
Why the government should hold bitcoin
ARMA would stop the federal government from auctioning off bitcoin seized in law enforcement operations and instead hold it permanently as a reserve asset.
Begich framed the bill as a natural extension of existing reserve policy:
“We have gold reserves, we have forex reserves, we have silver reserves. As the economy matures and the consensus store of value across economies could shift, it’s important for us to adapt our reserves policy to be reflective of that store of value change.”
He pointed to the roughly 93-year cycle in which global reserve currencies change hands, noting that countries like El Salvador and the Czech Republic are already pursuing similar strategies:
“If history teaches us anything, it’s that the reserve currency may not be the United States dollar forever. We hold gold as an insurance policy. I think it’s important that we update our insurance policy with Bitcoin.”
The ‘untethering event’ and the case for scarcity
Begich described the 1970s departure from the gold standard as an “untethering event” that disconnected the dollar from scarcity.
He noted that roughly 40% of all dollars in circulation were created in the last several years, driving the inflation Americans have experienced.
He emphasized that reserve assets must be scarce and widely held, arguing bitcoin’s fixed supply and growing diffusion of ownership create a virtuous cycle:
“Scarcity can lead to consensus, consensus leads to acquisition, acquisition leads to scarcity. Once those network effects are in play, the earlier you are to that cycle, the more advantaged you will be.”
Alaska’s permanent fund as a model
Begich also drew a sharp distinction between universal basic income and Alaska’s Permanent Fund, which distributes dividends from a sovereign wealth fund built on oil revenues:
“This is not money that has been created out of thin air and then distributed to people. This is money that has been working in the economy. I don’t call it universal basic income, I call it universal basic investment.”
He warned that COVID-era stimulus showed how printing money creates inflation that outruns the benefit, and argued that direct citizen ownership of assets, potentially through tokenization, is a better path forward than government-intermediated redistribution.
