Historically a big purpose of central banks or at least a rich institution was to be a buyer of last resort and prop up the economy in times of panic. Doesn't a

Historically a big purpose of central banks or at least a rich institution was to be a buyer of last resort and prop up the economy in times of panic. Doesn't always have to be a central bank, but needs to be an institution big enough and independent enough to save markets. A decentralized system would almost by definition not have this, and probably result in disaster if there was a panic. Don't have an exhaustive list of financial panics offhand, but for ex: Panic of 1837 was thought to be as bad as it was in part bc central banks weren't strong enough to step in American economy recovered from Great Depression in part due to increased govt spending in ww2 Panic of 1907: Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan acted as financial backstop 2008 financial crisis response led largely by central banks China's stock market is managed very tightly by central bank