After US President Joe Biden announced a student loan forgiveness scheme aimed at canceling the debt of up to $20,000 for millions of Americans, a Bitcoin (BTC) proponent suggested an alternative way to repay the loans.
Dennis Porter, CEO of a non-profit organization called the Satoshi Action Fund, tweeted that there is another way for the US government to solve the student loan problem. According to Porter, Biden could give each debtor some $10,000 worth of BTC and lock it into a 10-year smart contract. The nonprofit executive explained that the contract should be enough to pay off the remaining balance once it’s released.
Community members criticized Porter’s mention of the smart contract as some believe that the Bitcoin network cannot support it. One Twitter user responded to Porter urging him not to just “cluster random things together,” while another said BTC is not the answer to everything.
In response to the Twitter thread, FinTech CEO John Wingate told Porter that this can’t be done with just Bitcoin. Wingate also asked Porter if this is his admission that BTC needs to expand its use cases.
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Despite criticism about the compatibility of smart contracts with Bitcoin, Porter has stood by his proposal and defended his position. The executive also shared a link to a guide detailing a method on how smart contracts can be used to lock Bitcoin into time:
Porter’s proposal might be based on the assumption that bitcoin will act as a hedge against inflation and that its value will increase over time, enough to pay off student loan debt. However, for BTC to become an effective inflation hedge, Skybridge Capital CEO Anthony Scaramucci believes that Bitcoin needs to be in the “over a billion user zone” in terms of user numbers.
