Each taxpayer would need to pay 10 BTC to get even with the US national debt

The United States national debt reached an all-time high of $33 trillion on September 18 and the collected taxes from all US taxpayers would need to be close to 10 Bitcoin (BTC), in order to get even with the Treasury debts.

In this context, data retrieved by Finbold from the US Debt Clock website shows an astonishing debt of $254,961 per US taxpayer — by dividing the total debt superior to $33 trillion by the number of individuals that were taxed in the country.

Current numbers would mean that each taxpayer in the United States would need to pay an equivalent of 9.44 BTC, considering Bitcoin is priced at $27,000 by press time. Notably, the debt per taxpayer is also four times (4x) higher than the US average annual salary of $59,428.

At current prices, it would be impossible to pay all the US treasury investors using Bitcoin’s maximum supply of 21 million BTC, as the national debt would surpass it by 58 times for an equivalent amount of 1.23 billion in the leading cryptocurrency.

Interestingly, not even the entire crypto market capitalization, multiplied by 30, would be enough to cover all the US dollars needed to get even with the national treasury debt.

What is the US National Debt?

When investors buy US treasury bonds, they are actually lending money to the United States government to finance their governance. It is an alternative method of funding administrative expenses, besides tax payments.

However, different from taxes, this is a voluntary method, which rewards these lenders with an interest rate, according to the Federal Reserve interest rate decisions. 

“The national debt of the United States is the total national debt owed by the federal government of the United States to Treasury security holders. The national debt at any point in time is the face value of the then-outstanding Treasury securities that have been issued by the Treasury and other federal agencies.”

— Wikipedia, on “National debt of the United States”

There is controversy among finance experts about the real ability of the United States Treasury to honor these payments, considering such an elevated value in comparison to metrics like the US GDP and available money supply. Arguing that if all investors tried to be repaid, the United States would probably default on this debt.