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Banks (in the US) don't loan out deposits; deposits are the cheapest source of reserves used for settlement, but the actual loans themselves are created ex nihilo [1].

This is kind of the central point of why we no longer experience bank runs in the broader economy, and why Bitcoin will always be vulnerable to them.

[1] http://www.standardandpoors.com/spf/upload/Ratings_US/Repeat...



Does anyone know whether Gox keeps 100% of deposits in reserve?

In a somewhat similar situation-- online poker, where poker sites took deposits in a wildly unregulated space-- Full Tilt Poker only kept a small amount of deposits on hand and paid out much of it to insiders.




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