A remarkable ‘fact’ in the American budget for 2025, which is causing a stir on social medium X. It is Pierre Rochard, Vice President of Research at bitcoin miner Riot, who interprets the policy document as very bullish for bitcoin.
Biden bullish?
BREAKING🚨 Biden’s 2025 budget is very bullish on #Bitcoin the White House expects $250k by 2035.
They are counting on it for their tax revenues! pic.twitter.com/JOipF3PKpG
— Pierre Rochard (@BitcoinPierre) March 11, 2024
This claim has sparked a wave of reactions within the crypto community. According to Rochard, the federal government assumes that the bitcoin price will continue to rise ($250,000 in 2034-2035) and that it would be interesting to levy taxes on it. According to others, Rochard’s interpretation should be taken with a grain of salt.
For example, Zack Guzmán notes: “This is page 160 of the White House budget. (The White House would not put the Bitcoin logo over the White House).”
Is the Biden Administration Really Predicting $250,000 per Bitcoin?
Rochard later clarified his tweet in response to the reactions. “I made the charts myself to illustrate the bullishness. […] Run the numbers, do you think money grows on trees? […] Few understand the relationship between trading volume, taxes and BTC price.”
In defense of his position, Rochard also argues that his analysis was intended to shed light on the optimistic tax assumptions regarding digital assets. “I never claimed that the image is part of the president’s budget. It is of course a collage to illustrate the assumptions behind the tax revenues. Separately, it is remarkable that the White House is not just bullish, but increasingly bullish year-over-year,” he noted.
Tax revenue
Rochard also accuses the White House of painting too rosy a picture of future tax revenues from digital assets. “I think the White House is being deceptive in this scenario, there is no way they are really that bullish. They have artificially inflated fiat tax revenues to make it look better, this is part of their overall attack on bitcoin.”
Remarkably, the White House’s proposed budget does indeed outline a series of regulatory and tax measures targeting the digital assets sector, with the aim of capturing a projected $10 billion in revenue from this emerging market by 2025. The focus of the budget includes the implementation of wash trading rules, a 30% tax on crypto mining and other regulations aimed at streamlining the tax treatment of digital assets and closing loopholes that favor specific investor demographics.
The new Biden budget proposal plans to bring in more than $2.3 billion in the next five years by taxing bitcoin miners. pic.twitter.com/CzUAwCTsMo
— Sam Callahan (@samcallah) March 11, 2024
Source: https://bitcoinmagazine.nl/nieuws/witte-huis-voorspelt-bitcoin-prijsstijging-tot-250-000
