[caylus]

Sure, banks can create money "out of thin air" because the liability created when the loaned money is debited is balanced out by the asset of the loan owned to them.

But if the loan defaults, the asset disappears, and if this happens enough the bank risks becoming insolvent and no longer being able to repay other liabilities like its deposits unless bailed out.

Maybe that's what you're alluding to - the Fed will always bail them out so deposits are never lost? That's probably true in practice, but a loan from the Fed can't in of itself restore solvency, since it's still both an asset and a liability. In the most extreme case, the bank would still go bankrupt, investors would lose their money, and depositors could also lose some of their money unless individually bailed out by the FDIC.

Back to the original discussion - the key question here is are people who hold cryptocurrency at Coinbase considered "investors" or "depositors", and are they protected by the FDIC? The latter is almost certainly no, and the former determines how much they can expect to get repaid if Coinbase goes bankrupt.

[bubbleRefuge]

Agreed on crypto. Just feel its important to understand that banks are quasi-government institutions because of the federal reserve system, heavy regulation, and FDIC insurance. All of this evolved over time to improve how they serve as financial intermediaries and most of which crypto lacks.

So how banks actually work is important. Banks assets vs liabilities are their capital ratio and they become insolvent when the capital ratios are below fed requirements and are not allowed to continue lending. Notice these ratios were relaxed in the 2008 crisis. But bank liquidity is different from solvency. Liquidity, the ability to make interbank payments for consumers(like writing checks) or make withdrawals is guaranteed for banks because these adjustments are made in bank reserve accounts(at the fed) which are totally different from consumer checking accounts. And, the fed will cover any overdrafts in these accounts by design. So equating lending with consumer deposits and liquidity is wrong. Banks don't check deposit amounts before making loans. This is a myth. They create loans out of thin air so long as capital requirements are met because loan funding is nothing more than a bank making a deposit to the borrowers account in exchange for a signed contract (which is an asset to the bank). The fed will cover overdrafts from banks