House Democrats Propose ‘Digital Dollar’ in Move Big For Bitcoin: Here’s Why

11 years after Satoshi Nakamoto launched Bitcoin, some facets of the U.S. government have finally indicated that they are seriously considering the creation of a digital dollar, a move that many say could validate cryptocurrencies, especially BTC.

Digital Dollar?

Democrats in the House of Representatives are seriously considering the creation of a system of digital wallets, in which a “digital dollar” (unfortunately not Bitcoin) would be stored. This intent was revealed in a legislative text published Monday by the House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters. See more

As the kids say, NEWS: House Democrats have proposed creating a 'digital dollar' for direct payments to individuals. W/ — Colin Wilhelm (@colinwilhelm)

The text, or at least one related to it, was by Peter Van Valkenburgh, Director of Research at Bitcoin advocacy CoinCenter. The text defined the term “digital dollar” as one of two things: 1) “a balance expressed as a dollar value consisting of digital ledger entries” and 2) “an electronic unit of value, redeemable by an eligible financial institution.”

The idea with this, of course, is that it would be much easier to enact the Hill’s proposed stimulus plan against economic disaster to give every American thousands of dollars through a digital system rather than through a physical system of, say, cheques. As Bloomberg wrote:

While it isn’t clear how exactly such a system would work at scale, many in the Bitcoin space have already dubbed this a “central bank digital currency,” though have been sure not to call it a “cryptocurrency.”

Could Aid Bitcoin, Analyst Says

a cryptocurrency analyst, this move could help Bitcoin. He explained this theory by pointing towards a theoretical four-step process that may take place if this text becomes reality:

1. “Introduce digital dollar to ship stimulus payments.”
2. “Hundreds of millions of Americans get their first digital wallet.”
3. Trillions of dollars of stimulus, assuming the crisis goes longer than expected and has more of an economic impact than expected, will lead to the debasement of the dollar.
4. Bitcoin rises as many try to find a hedge against their devaluing dollar.

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A Scenario: Step 1: Introduce digital dollar to ship stimulus payments. Step 2: Hundreds of millions of Americans get their first digital wallet. Step 3: Trillions of stimulus leads to..well..you know. Step 4: Do you really need me to say it? — Nathaniel Whittemore (@nlw)

Notably, the stimulus could happen without a digital system, but a digital system available to anyone with access to the internet would likely increase the efficacy of the measures, thereby increasing the amount of money that gets created and injected into the economy.

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