This past week, the 20 millionth of the 21 million bitcoins that will ever exist was mined, leaving fewer than one million left to be mined over the coming decades. This milestone was reached while the digital asset market is in a daunting bear market. The short-term volatility of the digital asset Bitcoin (BTC) is extreme, but fear of that volatility masks the historical trajectory and long-term technological promise of the asset. The relatively low price provides a strategic entry point for Israel to begin accumulating Bitcoin for its national reserves.

Bitcoin is increasingly seen as what gold has been for centuries—the apex commodity store of value—of the digital age. The next epochal revolution in money is arriving. In this current bear-market dip, Israel has a historic opportunity to exercise foresight and position itself as a leader in the next era of money. Even if Bitcoin only has a modest chance of becoming a major store of value asset, the upside is so large that a small allocation is rational. Israel should therefore buy the Bitcoin dip.

Now is a perfect opportunity for Israel to stock up on bitcoin. The value of BTC in fiat terms has swung wildly, recently trading around $65,000 (₪201,500) per bitcoin after crashing roughly 45% from its all-time high last October around $126,000 (₪390,600). 

The economic case for urgency is straightforward. Only 21 million bitcoin will ever exist, and the supply is permanently fixed in computer code, and therefore the value cannot be inflated away through monetary policy. Moreover, the amount of bitcoins yielded from mining halves over time, reducing the rate of new bitcoin issuance over time and increasing the asset’s scarcity. Demand comes from genuine utility: a decentralized, borderless store of value, peer-to-peer transactions without intermediaries, a hedge against fiat instability, and true financial portability.

For a nation with Israel’s history, this last point is profound. Jewish memory is filled with stories of expulsion and flight, families forced to abandon homes, gold, businesses, and savings. Bitcoin changes that equation forever. With nothing more than a seed phrase and internet access, anyone can carry their entire wealth across borders, instantly and without censorship.

Bitcoin appears to be approaching the institutional tipping point. Corporate treasuries and ETFs now hold roughly 4 million BTC (worth hundreds of billions of dollars). BlackRock’s BTC ETF, iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), holds over 700,000 BTC. The largest corporate holder, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), owns over 738,000 BTC and continues to rapidly accumulate. Amidst this institutional adoption, a new Bitcoin-based digital credit market is emerging in which firms like Strategy and Asset Entities are issuing BTC-backed perpetual preferred securities such as STRK, STRF, and SATA, allowing investors to earn fixed or floating yield while the companies raise capital against their Bitcoin reserves.  

The United States is already embracing the digital revolution in capital. President Trump ran in 2024 on an unequivocally pro-crypto platform and, since taking office, has delivered: major legislation legitimizing crypto stablecoins, an executive order creating a federal stockpile of digital assets, and a dedicated Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. That reserve now holds approximately 328,000 BTC (mostly from criminal and civil forfeitures), and the order wisely prohibits the government from selling any more of it. The U.S. has not yet made outright purchases of Bitcoin, but the framework is in place, and momentum is building. The CLARITY Act, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives with bipartisan support in July 2025 and is now awaiting a vote in the Senate, would define clear jurisdictional rules for digital assets between U.S. regulators, clarity that could boost Bitcoin’s value by legitimizing the asset class, reducing regulatory uncertainty, and enabling greater institutional capital inflows.

Meanwhile, sovereign investors in West Asia and Europe have begun taking action. Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company, Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global, and the Fonds souverain intergénérationnel du Luxembourg have already accumulated indirect exposure to Bitcoin through equity holdings in companies and regulated ETFs. Israel can therefore no longer be first in indirect exposure, but it can still be the first major nation to buy bitcoin directly for its national balance sheet. 

Israel already has the financial firepower to act decisively and start leading the pack. As of the latest official data (end of January 2026), the Bank of Israel’s foreign-exchange reserves stand at a record ₪724.8 billion, up ₪52.9 billion (8%) in a single year and equivalent to nearly 40% of GDP. These reserves are among the world’s strongest relative to economy size and are highly liquid: the vast majority sits in major currencies, government bonds, and other easily tradable instruments. A modest 0.5–2% reallocation, ₪3.62–14.49 billion, would buy roughly 17,000–67,500 BTC at current prices without straining the portfolio. Even larger moves are feasible. Monthly inflows and revaluations routinely add billions. In short, the cash is there. The purchasing ability is there. 

The only real obstacle is Israel’s own conservative institutional culture. The Bank of Israel has built its reputation on prudence, liquidity, and capital preservation above all else. Just last month, in a Knesset Finance Committee hearing, officials firmly rejected expanding gold holdings, citing volatility, illiquidity, and the superior historical returns of their current diversified equity-and-bond portfolio. They continue to prioritize the Digital Shekel CBDC project and traditional reserve management. Crypto seized from terror financing (mostly stablecoins, with only a negligible amount of bitcoin) is frozen or disrupted for enforcement purposes, and is never added to national reserves. Any strategic shift toward Bitcoin would require the Monetary Committee, and likely Knesset backing, to overcome deeply ingrained risk aversion.

That caution is understandable. Central banks are not venture funds. Yet in this moment, excessive conservatism carries its own risk: being left behind in the evolution of money. From word-of-mouth IOUs in hunter-gatherer societies, to commodity monies like feathers and shells, to metallic coinage, to the post-1971 era of unbacked paper money, every leap forward rewarded adapters and punished those who clung to the old monetary paradigm. Israel’s tech ecosystem and its existential need for portable, seizure-resistant wealth all make Bitcoin particularly appropriate for Israel. A country that helped pioneer modern cybersecurity, cryptography, and financial technology should not be absent from the next evolution of money.

Bitcoin is not a replacement for prudent reserve management. It is a strategic asymmetric bet that perfectly fits Israel’s unique circumstances. The reserves exist, and the opportunity now is inexpensive by historical standards. The only question left is whether foresight will overcome institutional inertia.

If Bitcoin does become a major global store of value, today’s prices will look modest in retrospect. The question for Israel is whether it wants to participate in that possibility, or watch it unfold from the sidelines. Israel should allocate a small portion of its reserves to Bitcoin while prices remain well below recent highs. If Bitcoin becomes the new apex money in the digital age, the world will ask: why didn’t we buy when it was more affordable? Let Israel’s answer be that we did.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)