Elon Musk and his gang of young interns are descending on US federal agencies like flies.

After a tense weekend in which Musk forced his way into the Treasury's servers — gaining access to Social Security, Medicare, and possibly student loan payment information — it was widely reported that Trump's broligarch has "read only access" to the department's sensitive information. Essentially, he can't gunk up any ongoing payments, at least yet, though his team theoretically has access to huge amounts of personal information about Americans the Treasury holds, inviting legal attacks for unlawful disclosure.

And to hear him tell it, Musk is only getting started. Now he's signaling a radical plan to transfer the US Treasury to the blockchain.

"Career Treasury officials are breaking the law every hour of every day by approving payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress," he posted on Monday.

The tech mogul failed to share any evidence to back up his claim, but when asked by an acolyte if the Treasury should be put on the blockchain "so this doesn't happen," Musk replied with an enthusiastic "yes!"

If it's unclear to you what that even means in practice, you're not alone. Forbes has reported that, so far, Musk has floated using the blockchain to safeguard data, track federal spending, make payments on behalf of the federal government, and manage agency buildings — things that are already done with regular payment systems using the dollar. Musk hasn't yet explained what any of his nebulous blockchain plans mean, except that they will "save us money."

But the richest man in the world might be building the case against his plans on his own. Musk's Treasury takeover on Monday was met swiftly with a joint lawsuit filed by a number of activist groups and unions, which sent the crypto market into turmoil.

Soon after the Treasury lawsuit was announced, Musk's favorite crypto asset, Dogecoin, saw its price tumble 15 percent. Bitcoin likewise dropped by 2.5 percent — a three week low — and Ethereum fell by 18 percent, its largest drop since November, likely aggravated by Trump's ongoing tariff war.

Those price drops come amidst an increasingly volatile crypto market more broadly, as government actions like Trump's executive orders and State lawmakers' plans to develop "Bitcoin Strategic Reserves" make waves in the already rocky digital currency space. Put simply, crypto is an extremely reactive asset, which doesn't make a great foundation for a massive economy like the US.

Critics have long charged that moving Treasury assets to the blockchain could result in increased inflation, slower transaction processing times, and soaring crypto prices. While some of that might be good for deep-pocketed blockchain investors like Musk, it's a raw deal for American taxpayers, who stand to gain very little from the deal.

In addition, many experts worry that the speculative market legitimated by the likes of Musk and Trump is pushing crypto toward a large and dangerous bubble, which is liable to burst at any moment. They also flag that driving full-throttle toward blockchain-as-currency serves to weaken the US dollar — which America has spent decades installing as the standard throughout the world — potentially crippling the actual, real-life market while the made-up fantasy one soars.

With all that in mind, Musk's unprecedented plans for the Treasury sound less like a play for "transparency and accountability" and more like yet another handout from American taxpayers to the wealthy. At least we'll be able to verify it on the blockchain.

More on the blockchain: Blockchains Were Supposed to Be "Unhackable." Now They're Getting Hacked.


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