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A comment on South African Brothers Vanish, and So Does $3.6B in Bitcoin Exit Scam. Parent comment

Re:South African Brothers Vanish, and So Does $3.6B in Bitco... by nerfhammer on Wednesday June 23, 2021 @02:42PM (#27608380)
The US has had periods where banks or even corporations could print their own money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat_banking

It wasn't fiat money, they were deposit notes representing gold or silver. And while outright fraud wasn't much of an issue since physical banks can't just disappear and leave town overnight, if the bank collapsed the currency would probably not be redeemable anymore.

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Re:South African Brothers Vanish, and So Does $3.6B in Bitco... by manquer on Wednesday June 23, 2021 @03:13PM (#27608749)
Fraud was high.

It was not fraud by the institutions as such, but counterfeits was a big problem with as many as 7000 unique notes it was next to impossible to know which was genuine.

Post the civil war as much as half the currency was estimated to be counterfeit. The secret service was given the policing money task as a direct result.

There was streamlining of currency issue after that.

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Re:South African Brothers Vanish, and So Does $3.6B in Bitco... by jsrcout on Wednesday June 23, 2021 @03:23PM (#27608859)
George Byron Merrick's book Old Times on the Upper Mississippi: The Recollections of a Steamboat Pilot from 1854 to 1863 [0] has a fascinating chapter on how people got rich on wildcat banking swindles.

[0] https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47262

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Re:South African Brothers Vanish, and So Does $3.6B in Bitco... by slowhand09 on Wednesday June 23, 2021 @05:12PM (#27610443)
Nevada, New Hampshire, and Utah have gold notes that are legal tender now.

https://www.jmbullion.com/gold/gold-notes/

https://www.jmbullion.com/1-nevada-goldback-gold-note/

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