Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) visited the New York City “bitcoin bar,” PubKey, while in town for the sold out Bitcoin Investors Week conference hosted by bitcoin personality Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano.
Lummis then appeared live with Maria Bartiromo on Feb. 28 for Fox News’ “Mornings with Maria,” there to discuss largely:
“… the ‘extensive’ waste, fraud and abuse Elon Musk’s DOGE has found,” according to the Fox Business video’s title of the interview.
Bartiromo then turned the conversation toward the topic of bitcoin, asking the senator,
“I understand last night you bought drinks at (the) bitcoin-themed PubKey bar. But listen, you paid in cash:
“Why? How about bitcoin?”
Senator Cynthia Lummis responded, “Well, because I spend dollars and save bitcoin. Bitcoin is an asset that’s growing in value.”
She continued, “… I know it’s volatile. It’s short-term volatility has been in existence since it has been in existence. But in the long term it’s growing in value, where the U.S. dollar is by design, debasing, every year.
“The FED has it designed so it inflates 2% or more; they try to keep it around 2% but they can’t … So the U.S. dollar is always declining by design.
“And so the scarcity of bitcoin, the fact that 21 million will only exist in all of time gives it that certainty, that stability, that scarcity in the long run.
“And there will be short-term volatility, but over time as it becomes more ubiquitous, it will become more stable and more valuable.“
“She’s Right, You Know …”
Lummis is a long-time scholar of bitcoin, having first purchased in 2013, buying bitcoin at $330, and in June 2021 went on record as owning an impressive 5 bitcoin, at the time.
Indicative of an accumulation-over-time strategy, since then, her October 2021 Periodic Transaction Report also specified a single purchase, valued at “between $50,001 and $100,000” in August 2021.
She also spoke of a bitcoin strategic reserve bill before then presidential candidate Donald Trump did.
In fact, there’s no doubt from her many public statements that Lummis is a scholar of bitcoin, not just an investor, and her reply to Bartiromo displayed a working knowledge of what bitcoiners know as Gresham’s law.
This “law” is the observance that in any situation where there are two or more competing currencies,
“… the more valuable commodity will gradually disappear from circulation,”
according to Wikipedia, as people hoard the more valuable asset and “dump” their weaker currency on more everyday needs. Interestingly, on his own visit to Pub Key in September, Trump actually bought drinks for patrons using bitcoin.
While certainly a welcome act of publicity for the bitcoin community, and no doubt for PubKey, the contrast is clear: Lummis’ understanding of bitcoin far exceeds the president’s current knowledge base.
In addition to exemplifying Gresham principals in her reply, Lummis also seemed to casually reflect on the Lindy effect, the observed phenomena that a thing seems safer and more normalized the longer it’s around, and therefore more likely to remain around.
Wikipedia says this is because,
“Longevity implies a resistance to change, obsolescence, or competition, and greater odds of continued existence into the future.”
In comparison to Lummis’ words, quoted earlier, her familiarity with the Lindy effect concept seems evident as well:
“… over time as (bitcoin) becomes more ubiquitous, it will become more stable and more valuable.“
Lummis’s full appearance with Bartiromo can be viewed below.
