Do you want everyone taking money out of ATM machines, stuffing it in their mattress? Literal bank runs? This sounds extreme, but that is a possibility if the public genuinely perceives there is "no safe place for money."

Just have to have them take the next step too. That money stuffed in mattress is at risk from even more reasons. The house could burn down, there might be criminals stealing it or simply the police could get hint and do civil forfeiture.

In the end, bank might be preferable option.

The first $250,000 per person per bank, essentially, is already protected. With investments and real estate living on different balances sheets, any policy change or bailout here isn't for the sake of people who might stuff money in their mattresses. They're already covered.

It's about guaranteeing that the stewards of very large wealth don't have to practice the conservative risk management strategies available to them.

Conservative risk management strategies like "only bank with BofA and JPMorgan"?

Ackman isn't wrong that the practical result of bank runs is that all accounts beyond the FDIC limit will suddenly migrate to one of two or three major "too big to fail" banks.

I'm not sure what the solution to all this is but it sure looks like a good time to buy stock in quasi-monopoly bank companies and short all the rest.

>Conservative risk management strategies like "only bank with BofA and JPMorgan"?

Or: diversify bank relationships, diversify asset classes/types, buy private insurance, etc. Deposit risk is not exactly a novelty.

> Ackman isn't wrong that the practical result of bank runs is that all accounts beyond the FDIC limit will suddenly migrate to one of two or three major "too big to fail" banks.

He might be right that immediate reactionary adjustments will rush these risk-blind deposits into big institutions, but FDIC insurance and bailout-able banks aren't the only ways to keep a liquid portfolio largely secure and money will inevitably spread out more prudently once the dust settles.

He just wants a bailout for SVB depositors because he calculated a bailout into his own risk strategy and is now developing that strategy through its next phase by whipping up the political pressure that could make it happen. It's a game.

As far as I can tell, there's no way to buy private insurance for a bank account. This seems to be a widely-held misconception.

A properly-stored crypto cold wallet is a safe place for pretty much any amount of money. Most people here tell me I don't need that because banks are safe and secure and backed by the might of the US government.

> A properly-stored crypto cold wallet is a safe place for pretty much any amount of money.

???

It's a safe place for the units of cryptocurrency identified by it, but those aren't money until it can be exchanged for something. Between you burying that USB key under the old oak tree and you digging it back up post-apocalypse, those units of cryptocurrency will have a very different exchange value. It's no different than tucking currency under a mattress, except that the odds of your 2023 cryptocoin being worthless by the time you pull it out is much higher than that the 20th century's global reserve currency becomes worthless. Although it might go the other way, your wallet contents don't sound like a very safe store of money at all.

Good luck trying to pay 500 employees every two weeks with a crypto cold wallet.

Well another option is a good multisig, which is also quite safe and works just fine for paying people every two weeks.

The best part about storing your crypto in a cold wallet long term is how it's worth dramatically less cash when you exchange back.

Yes, its value can change, but at least it doesn't just disappear because some other idiot made bad investments.

I don't know what you consider "long term", but if you asked anyone who stored their wealth in a cold wallet before 2020 they would be at worst, a couple % up right now. The vast majority would likely be up at least 100%.

These completely mindless dunks on crypto on HN are getting out of hand. You can say it's not scalable, or that it doesn't have a future for A, B, C reasons, or any other number of valid complaints. But instead they've devolved to the most degenerate falsehoods that can be disproven with a single look at the long term chart.