Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by piracy1 1934 days ago
> Another thing I wonder with bitcoin in particular is if everyone had bitcoin and no other currency, and something like COVID happened, what entity would provide liquidity in order to help those affected by a disaster?

What? It's not specific to the way you transact. Governments are providing liquidity, if the whole world used crypto they would do payouts the same way just in crypto. Perhaps I misunderstand the question.

2 comments

Modern governments usually provide liquidity by simply printing money out of thin air and giving it to those who need it. This causes inflation potentially but is thought to be a fair trade for stimulus.

What "entity" would give people bitcoins?

Oh, well that's kinda the whole point, it has real value beyond the whims of a centralized body, you can't do that, save for a rainy day.
None actually, inflation is felt immediately on Bitcoin. The government would have to keep their books in order, which thankfully crypto also helps.

Market making in crypto is usually done by overcollateralized liquidity pools, farming and staking.

They would not be able to immediately mint trillions of dollars of crypto assets (at least not bitcoin specifically).