Former UFC champion Conor McGregor announced his candidacy for president and proposed the establishment of a bitcoin national reserve in Ireland.

The former UFC Champion Conor McGregor announced his candidacy for the presidency of Ireland and recently launched an initiative in social media to establish a national reserve of bitcoin, saying that it would "return power to the people".

McGregor advocated the establishment of a Bitcoin reserve and called for industry leaders to participate

On May 9, McGregor wrote on platform X: "The intention of encrypted money was to get people back in control of money. The establishment of Ireland ' s Bitcoin strategic reserve would give the people real monetary power to themselves. He added that the details of the plan would be further elaborated in the upcoming X Spaces.

Source: @TheNoturiousMMA (X)

The post elicited responses from a number of eminent personalities in the Bitcoin Circle, including The Pop Podcast host Anthony Popliano and David Bailey, an encrypted consultant to former United States President Trump. McGregor invited them to the discussion and said, "We need the best minds to participate in the development of the Bitcoin reserve. " ... "

McGregor officially ran as an independent candidate at the end of March 2025, and the campaign programme focused on anti-immigrant and anti-crime issues. The term of office of the President of Ireland will end on 11 November 2025 and the new presidential elections will take place before that date.

There's a lot of political controversy, and the encryption project is still failing.

Despite the Bitcoin Reserve Initiative, McGregor himself is still in the middle of controversy. He had recently been convicted of characterizational offences in a civil case and had filed an appeal; he had also been investigated for alleged hate speech. In addition, the encryption project that he supported, REAL, announced a refund at the pre-sale stage in early April for failure to meet the requirements for fund-raising. The project, launched by Real World Gaming, was originally targeted at $1 million, but only about $390,000 was raised within 28 hours, which could not be started.

There are still a few countries in the world, including the United States of America, El Salvador and Bhutan, that have actually established national bitcoin reserves. The proposed national reserve scheme by McGregor, if politically supported, would represent an important turning point in Ireland ' s encryption policy path.