Why would government of countries do that? When they know they can print their local currency whenever they want. Bitcoin is still not a global currency. Countries like North Korea and Iran do. It need Bitcoin but USD. They have been secretly accumulating USD by unfair means.

Bitcoin is the currency for common man to break the shackles of centralisation and save his savings. It is a currency of the Internet and countries do not operate only on internet.

think its time windfury changes his soap

anyway shower thought
why do governments even nee to spend money buying coin/ mining coin,
they just got to declare a mining farm as 'stealing electric from the grid' and take the equipment/coins
they just got to declare a exchange as an illegal operation and take the coin

it didnt cost much to grab silk road funds. nor some now defunct exchange funds.
there is supposedly 500k coins still locked up in MTGox keys too..

all grabbed without a single asic purchased or government fiat -> exchange purchase

Not necessarily, Iran has one of the lowest electricity prices in the world even without subsidies.

https://financialtribune.com/articles/energy/97278/rise-in-electricity-and-water-tariffs-in-iran


That's what Venezuelan authorities have been doing for a couple years already.

Iran too: https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/30/20635616/iran-bitcoin-computers-seized-energy-consumption but that one was about illegally using subsidized electricity afaik

It's hard to say they are holding because as a government, they should be transparent on how they will manage the wealth of the nation.
Also, it's kinda odd that a government who like a centralized policy investing in a decentralized system, if they would like bitcoin to be a success in the future, then they should be legalizing everything to give way on improvement of the adoption process.

Bitcoin has always been an speculative asset, being a store of value is sometimes makes people doubtful due to its price volatility.

I think it's a real possibility. Bitcoin can be useful for making unofficial but important transactions. It's also useful to cut back on international transfer fees, especially if we're talking about a big sum of money. Some might also slowly accumulate BTC in a hope that they might eventually take over the control by owning a huge percentage. It can also be an investment option just in case your economy collapses. There've been multiple countries which have been caught doing stuff with BTC, so I think it's true that they do that. In my country, there've been serious talks with the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources offered nuclear power plants to make crypto mining facilities to make sure the energy they are making has a place to be directed to. The head of the Ministry called it a worldwide trend (see here, but it's in Ukrainian).
However, I don't think the scope of all these actions truly threatens the decentralization of Bitcoin.

Based from the news that says North Korea supporting cyber groups so they could earn money, I guess they are.

There are a lot of talks about North Korea planning heists all over the world to accumulate the money they might use to improve or develop their military forces. Some government officials are obviously thinking about this but they can't really do nothing since right now, most of them are more busy dealing with the current pandemic.

I don't think they are, if they are really accumulating btc why is it not reflecting on price! Do you know what it means for states/government to accumulate btc,  it would mean huge money is coming in, which will also mean price hike is inevitable, at least there will be signs that certain top personnels or organisation are buying,
But if they are, the advantage will be in their profit, what else can it be, more money more power.

maybe its nothing to do with bitcoin at all.. and instead a newly created Iranian national currency of its own

not some random coin. but a national coin that has beenput into legislature as the national currency. thus instantly making it relevant to its citizens

also mining is not for profit dependant on hashpower/coin per block. it doesnt matter if a coin owner mines 50 coins a block or 5000 coins a block.
it does not matter how many asics are used.

if a national government puts a value that 0.00001 coin = minimum wage labour hour
and they have the coin as a DLT (distributed ledger tech) where the mining aspect is centralised to government banks. and the ledger is then publicly distributed.
then the banks dont need to play the fighting competition for blocks.

meaning normal users/outsiders cant mine. but they have access to make transactions and verify.
and the banks by law instantly would have coins valued at 100,000man hours a coin. even without having to put in alot of asic hardware