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.

The governments of the world?

"Tether" is effectively a fractional-reserve "currency" in use by bitfinex.

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-...

That’s what fractional reserve means.

>they can just hire bodyguards

Which won't be able to carry weapons in most places. You'll have a hard time finding people who'll fight back when you're being kidnapped at gunpoint.

> Which won't be able to carry weapons in most places.

Most places? Places like what? Even Germany, with its rather restrictive gun laws, has exemptions for private security companies allowing to carry weapons.

While I don't know any specifics, I doubt that it's gonna be that much more difficult, in Eastern Europe out of all places, to get a legal carry permit.

The current wave of crime in parts of the Ukraine is, I shit you not, grenade violence. I’m inclined to agree with you.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/24/world/europe/ukraine-gren...

which is ironic as the RAF was a fairly hopeless terrorist organization that did not carry out many actions

I met an old school mate years ago she was working as a PA for deutsche bank in the uk and she mentioned that the senior mangers where annoyed as the UK would not allow them to have armed body guards.

With enough armed bodyguards you aren't going to be kidnapped at gunpoint. Why risk your life going after a hardened target when there are so many vulnerable ones.

I imagine its quite easy to find mercenaries that are willing to fight back. There is an entire industry for hiring people to fight wars.

I think their point was that that isn't legal in many places.

Don't go to those places. Or hire off duty police to escort you in those countries.

Bill Browder can't eat at the same restaurant twice because his food may be poisoned. If you are a high profile target you have to change your patterns to remain safe.

>With enough armed bodyguards you aren't going to be kidnapped at gunpoint.

Okay, now the kidnappers dress up as cops and "arrest" you. Perhaps they bribe the actual cops to do it for them?

Armed bodyguards do not seem like a substantial increase in difficulty for someone who intends to kidnap a person.