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I could imagine the current exchanges becoming banks, in the disruptive sense. What's stopping them from creating interest-earning savings accounts and loaning

I could imagine the current exchanges becoming banks, in the disruptive sense. What's stopping them from creating interest-earning savings accounts and loaning out on a fractional reserve basis? Seems like we'll be back where we were a century ago, bank runs and all.

QAPereo 9y ago
The governments of the world?
pjc50 9y ago
"Tether" is effectively a fractional-reserve "currency" in use by bitfinex.
- thomasdub 9y ago
  There isn't much evidence that Tether Limited is indeed keeping a reserve of USD for each Tether printed [0]. They are minting hundreds of millions of Tethers and there are a lot of skeptics out there who don't believe that they have billions of USD in a bank. [0] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4133884-bitcoin-additional-suspicious-developments https://seekingalpha.com/article/4133884-bitcoin-additional-...
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    That’s what fractional reserve means.