Audio versions are only available to subscribers of The Dispatch. Join Today! to listen to this post.

When the idea of a strategic bitcoin reserve was first announced, I had my share of reservations. If implemented incorrectly, acquiring significant amounts of bitcoin could unintentionally signal a lack of confidence in the dollar. Even more concerning, positioning bitcoin as a return to the gold standard -- just this time in digital form -- could undermine decades of robust monetary policy, destabilizing key U.S. institutions. History teaches us to be careful with monetary innovations -- they rarely come without unintended consequences. The gold standard, for example, proved disastrous during the Great Depression by severely limiting policymakers' ability to respond to the economic crisis. More recently, quantitative easing, initially praised as a clever tool for recovery, ended up fueling asset bubbles and dramatically widening wealth inequality.