UFC fighter turned Irish political candidate Conor McGregor has endorsed the idea of building a Bitcoin reserve in his country to give more “power back to the people.”

“Crypto in it’s origin was founded to give power back to the people. An Irish Bitcoin strategic reserve will give power to the people’s money,” McGregor wrote to X on May 9.

The former UFC champion said he would discuss his plans in more detail in an upcoming X spaces, prompting responses from some of the Bitcoin industry’s most prominent leaders.

Source: Conor McGregor

“We need the greatest minds for this BTC Reserve. Message me and lets chat on my space,” McGregor said in response to Bitcoiner and host of The Pomp Podcast, Anthony Pompliano.

One of US President Donald Trump’s crypto advisors, David Bailey, also reached out, to which McGregor responded: “David message me, let’s discuss your ideas!” 

McGregor announced his independent candidacy for the Irish presidency in late March 2025, centering his campaign on anti-immigration policies and combating crime.

Ireland’s next presidential election must take place by Nov. 11, 2025, as the term of the current President, Michael D. Higgins, is set to end the day after.

Establishing a Bitcoin reserve — let alone one coming from a minor, independent party — would be no easy feat.

Despite recent regulatory progress, the US, El Salvador and Bhutan are among the few countries that have established a Bitcoin reserve to date.

Related: US has ‘countless’ ways to bolster Bitcoin reserve: Bo Hines

McGregor’s political visibility was recently boosted by a trip to the White House, where he met Trump and received his support.

However, McGregor is facing intense scrutiny in Ireland, having recently been found guilty of sexual assault in a civil case — a conviction which he has since appealed — while also previously being investigated for hate speech crimes.

McGregor’s last crypto endeavor failed

McGregor’s push for a Bitcoin reserve comes a little over a month after the McGregor-backed REAL project failed to attract sufficient funding in its token launch pre-sale, prompting a full refund to all token bidders.

The team behind the project, Real World Gaming, only raised $392,315 over a 28-hour presale on April 5 and 6, less than half of the $1 million minimum requirement that it initially set.

Source: Conor McGregor

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The government of El Salvador continues stacking Bitcoin (BTC) for its national crypto reserve, despite an ongoing deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stipulating that the Central American country stop using public funds to purchase Bitcoin as one of the conditions for a loan agreement.

According to data from the El Salvador Bitcoin Office, the country acquired an additional seven BTC in the last seven days, bringing its total holdings to 6,173 BTC, valued at over $637 million.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin Office has continued its steady pace of Bitcoin acquisitions months after the IMF agreement was signed and shows no sign of halting its Bitcoin purchases.

The Central American country is one of the only nations actively purchasing Bitcoin in open market operations, and its national Bitcoin treasury strategy will serve as a blueprint for other countries also considering Bitcoin strategic reserves, according to crypto industry executives.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin holdings and acquisitions since March 13. Source: El Salvador Bitcoin Office

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El Salvador remains defiant against IMF pressure

El Salvador signed a $1.4 billion loan agreement with the IMF in December 2024. As part of that agreement, the government of the country agreed to rescind its Bitcoin legal tender law and make Bitcoin payments voluntary.

The agreement also stipulated that El Salvador must scale back its Bitcoin accumulation, refraining from using public funds to finance Bitcoin purchases. 

Additionally, the deal required the government privatize the Chivo Wallet, which was publicly funded but saw little use among residents.

In January 2025, lawmakers in the Central American country repealed the Bitcoin legal tender law in a 55-2 Congressional vote, although this did nothing to pause or slow Bitcoin acquisitions.

The IMF issued another request to the country to halt Bitcoin buys in March 2025, reiterating the original terms of the agreement. However, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele pushed back against the requests.

Bukele emphasized that the country would not stop its Bitcoin purchases or slow down its accumulation of BTC in the face of mounting pressure from the supranational financial institution.

“No, it’s not stopping. If it didn’t stop when the world ostracized us and most ‘Bitcoiners’ abandoned us, it won’t stop now, and it won’t stop in the future,” Bukele wrote in a March 4 X post.

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Investors of Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision (BSV) — a hard fork of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which itself is a hard fork of the Bitcoin (BTC) protocol, are attempting to revive a 2019 lawsuit against crypto exchange Binance for delisting the altcoin, which the litigants claim stunted the price of BSV.  

According to Law360, attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that a July 2024 decision from the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal dismissing the “loss of chance” claim made against Binance for delisting the token, should be reconsidered. The litigants demanded $9 billion in damages, in the original case.

The investors continue to claim that Binance’s 2019 delisting of BSV and similar major exchange delistings are the primary drivers of BSV’s long-term price decline and its failure to attract the investor attention enjoyed by Bitcoin.

BSV has been in a long-term price decline and has failed to capture investor attention. Source: TradingView

If the coalition of BSV investors manages to push through their legal argument and win in court, they could seek up to 10 billion British pounds (GBP), or roughly $13 billion, in damages from the exchange.

The price of BSV surged by approximately 15% following the news and is currently trading at around $42. However, the altcoin remains in a long-term downtrend and has failed to capture the vast majority of the economic or computing power from the Bitcoin network.

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Binance delists BSV due to founder Craig Wright’s behavior

Binance delisted BSV in April 2019 after announcing that the token failed to meet its listing standards due to the actions of BSV creator Craig Wright, who is infamous in the crypto world for falsely asserting that he is Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

Former CEO of the Binance exchange, Changpeng Zhao warned BSV of an impending delisting if Wright continued to make the claims that he was Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator.

Since that time, BSV has suffered several 51% attacks, a type of exploit where malicious nodes control a majority of the computing power on the network and can double-spend funds — removing one of the core mechanisms that make digital currencies valuable.

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