[markdestouches]

It's not the type of currency you have that prevents bank runs. There were plenty of bank runs with very real dollars in the beginning of the century. What stopped it was proper regulation. EDIT: I mean the beginning the 20th century, of course.

[eftychis]

Bank runs still happen. And I will keep it strictly to banks. Abacus being one case, when the DoJ went after it just to punish someone. A lot of banks in Europe during the 2008+ crisis -- which is why "capital controls" were enforced.

People attempted runs on Chinese banks a few months ago at the beginning of the real estate collapse there.

What keeps bank runs from happening is trust. Trust that the central bank will print as much money as necessary to ensure people have them. Trust that the government will deploy people with guns to protect or stop people from doing a bank run. Trust that regulation works: even if it doesn't and causes systemic issues that lead to issues years later like the 2008 crisis.

It is good that we "believe" bank runs don't or are not going to happen and that is the whole idea.

[markdestouches]

> Bank runs still happen.

I do agree with that. But it has become an extremely rare occurrence that usually indicates some deeper problems.

> A lot of banks in Europe during the 2008+ crisis -- which is why "capital controls" were enforced.

Well, one of the root causes of the whole crisis was deregulation, poor enforcement of regulations and "new" financial instruments that allowed for circumventing regulations.

> People attempted runs on Chinese banks a few months ago at the beginning of the real estate collapse there.

China is a bad example for many reasons. It is not really a market economy. There are extreme levels of corruption at all levels of the government. The real estate bubble has been growing for a long time at this point and the whole industry was marred with bad practices that eventually lead to the present state. I am no expert in the Chinese banking system, but I have heard about deep problems in there as well, which, I'd assume, would be at least partially tied to the corruption, poor regulation and poor enforcement of regulation. In such a situation when the whole real estate industry is collapsing due to the issues that have been ignored for more than a decade it would be odd not to expect it to negatively affect the banking sector also in the form of bank runs.

> It is good that we "believe" bank runs don't or are not going to happen and that is the whole idea.

It is indeed good that we have this belief. But it's also the result of the banking system's stability (even with all these crises). These two things reinforce each other.