Pantera Capital founder Dan Morehead believes a geopolitical shift in reserve management will push adversaries of the United States into Bitcoin at massive scale, calling it \u201cinevitable\u201d that China and Russia eventually hold \u201ctrillions of dollars\u201d worth of the asset.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Blockworks\u2019 Empire podcast released this week, the billionaire framed the prediction as part of a longer-term rotation in global reserve assets and a response to sanction risk embedded in dollar-denominated holdings. \u201cI think it\u2019ll take a decade or two,\u201d Morehead said, adding that the first movers will likely include US-aligned Gulf states before \u201cthe big one\u201d arrives with countries \u201cantagonistic to the United States, like China or Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morehead anchored his argument in the historical cadence of reserve transitions and the vulnerability of holding claims on a rival\u2019s financial system. \u201cYou gotta remember, the reserve currency\u2019s changed every 80 or 100 years\u2026 no one\u2019s ever really lasted for more than, let\u2019s call it 100, 110 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While calling it \u201cinconceivable that the dollar will be supplanted\u201d overnight, he warned that countries with large US Treasury positions face concentrated political risk. Citing China\u2019s portfolio, he argued: \u201cIt\u2019s really pretty crazy to have your entire country\u2019s life savings in an asset that your potential adversary could literally just cancel.\u201d In his view, that calculus makes it \u201cinevitable\u201d that such countries \u201cwill have started to save in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies\u201d within the next decade.<\/p>\n
The provocation lands amid measurable changes in how major economies hold US debt<\/a>. Official Treasury data for July 2025 show China\u2019s reported Treasury holdings at $730.7 billion, the lowest since 2008 and down markedly over the past decade, a decline often read as gradual diversification of reserves rather than abrupt abandonment.<\/p>\n JUST IN: BILLIONAIRE DAN MOREHEAD JUST SAID IT\u2019S \u201cINEVITABLE\u201d CHINA AND RUSSIA WILL HOLD TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN #BITCOIN<\/a><\/p>\n NATION STATE GAME THEORY. IT\u2019S HERE pic.twitter.com\/tOQO9tHYNi<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) September 23, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n Japan remains the largest holder at roughly $1.15 trillion, with the United Kingdom near $900 billion. The broader pool of foreign-held Treasuries nonetheless hit a record in July. These figures illustrate that while the dollar system remains deep and liquid, China\u2019s share is slipping at the margin\u2014the exact dynamic Morehead argues could accelerate alternative reserve strategies over time.<\/p>\n Morehead\u2019s timeline also intersects with a flurry of policy proposals that, if enacted, would normalize sovereign Bitcoin exposure. In March, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order<\/a> establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a national digital asset stockpile.\u00a0Wyoming legislators separately advanced a bill to permit limited Bitcoin investments\u2014capped at 3%\u2014within certain state funds, an incremental step toward institutional reserve management in digital assets at the state level.<\/p>\n