Kwarteng's Long Game: From Mini-Budget Meltdown to 31 BTC Stack

Kwasi Kwarteng, the former UK Chancellor who held the job for all of two weeks in September 2022, is back in the spotlight—minus the gilt yields and pension crises, plus 31 BTC on a balance sheet somewhere. The man went from crashing the UK economy to stacking sats faster than you can say "quantitative easing." That's what we call a career pivot.

In a CoinDesk interview, the short-lived Chancellor reflected on the infamous mini-budget that sent UK markets into a tailspin. "It was literally two weeks after we took office, it was just very, very rushed business," he said, pointing to the compressed timeline that followed his Sept. 6 appointment and Queen Elizabeth II's death just two days later. Not exactly ideal conditions for fiscal policy. Imagine trying to explain yield curve control to the monarchy while they're planning a funeral. Brutal calendar, honestly.

The fallout was, well, fallout-y. Gilt yields spiked, the UK's Liability-Driven Investment pension crisis got exposed, and the whole thing became a case study in what not to do. But Kwarteng still defends the intent, warning the UK is now trapped in a fiscal "doom loop" where "you're spending more money than you can raise in taxation" and rising taxes just "kill incentives in the economy." Nothing says "trust the plan" quite like admitting your policy created a doom loop while still insisting the heart was in the right place. Classic.

He also took a swing at the short-termism infecting both politics and markets: "Everything's quarterly driven, people are either euphoric or freaking out. And actually, you've got to take a longer view." This is rich coming from a guy whose greatest hits album lasted longer than his chancellorship. But hey, at least he's figured out the longer view involves bitcoin now. Better late than never, we guess.

That longer view now includes bitcoin. While in office, he said the Treasury and Bank of England were "certainly aware of bitcoin and digital assets, but it's still incredibly small"—a reluctance he sees as distinctly British. He also noted Paris is "quite forward leaning on digital assets," because of course France gets to have nice things. Meanwhile, the UK was out here panic-selling gilts while the French were probably smoking cheese and drafting friendly crypto regs. The gall.

Kwarteng pushed back when Boris Johnson called bitcoin a "Ponzi," arguing for a more open mind on emerging forms of money. Boris, of course, is the same guy who once called bitcoin a Ponzi and also once called himself the "living embodiment of the law." Man's got takes.

Now he's putting his money where his mouth is as executive chairman of UK bitcoin treasury firm Stack BTC (STAK), which holds 31 BTC. The firm even attracted Nigel Farage, who grabbed a 6% stake. Nothing says "diverse crypto ecosystem" quite like a former UK Chancellor and the man who made