Its hard to get your head round the figures...
What if Bitcoin really is successful to the point that the value of fiat crashes completely? What happens to the debt?
Interesting to think about.
What happens is incredible prosperity. The debt disappears like when Solon 2500 years ago in Greece was called to office and had the choice of giving Greece away to the money lenders who were charging gigantic interest, or simply rip up the debt. He ripped it up and that was that.
I wasn't aware of that story, so I looked it up. I just read this, which struck a chord:
'Athens was in dire need of change. Class warfare (the stuff that would make modern class warriors cringe) was on the verge of erupting and engulfing the city state in a dark cloud of Civil War. The Oligarchs, who owned most of the land and wealth, were looking to peacefully solve this problem without losing much of the power they had obtained.'
Nothing has really changed throughout history. If you know history you can predict the future because it always repeats. Henry IV also ripped up debt that was a burden and saved England from lenders, plus lot's of French kings had foreign lenders executed for fleecing them with high interest rates. There is a ton of historical proof that ripping up debt and defaulting gives your country a new era of economic, social, academic and artistic prosperity whereas trying to pay down unsustainable debt results in eventual disaster.