What does the Celsius Network, 1600’s Goldsmiths and Bear Markets have in common?steemCreated with Sketch.

in Project HOPE4 years ago (edited)

image.png
source

I was responding to a comment from @josevas217, but it got too long, so I made it a post. Thanks to @josevas217 for inspiring this post.

Goldsmiths and Banks

In 1600’s Europe, merchants (depositors) would give their gold and silver to goldsmiths for safekeeping and those goldsmiths would issue paper money to those depositors so depositors could redeem their gold and silver at any time.

The problem was, those Goldsmiths needed to find a way to make money, so they would lend out the depositor’s gold and silver to other borrowers for a periodic fee (interest rate)…in effect… having less gold and silver in their vaults than the paper money that they issued to depositors….

ie...9 gold pieces lent out for every 1 the goldsmith had in deposit (represented in paper notes).

But if all depositors asked for their gold and silver at the same time, the Goldsmiths wouldn't have enough gold and silver to give it to them because they lent it out.

Fractional Reserve Banking

This leads me to Fractional Reserve Banking. This is a concept that custodial institutions (goldsmiths and banks) that hold depositor assets (gold, money, and today, crypto) could lend out those assets to other borrowers for a fee as long as those depositors did not redeem their assets at the same time.

Hence, the more of the depositor's money the custodial lent out, the more money the custodial could make, as long as most depositors didn’t ask for their deposits back simultaneously.

Bank Run

However, when enough depositors got scared that they wouldn’t be able to get their money from the Goldsmith, many of them attempted to withdraw their money at the same time. Not having enough gold and silver in its vault, the Goldsmith had to close its doors to depositors.

This caused panic, so depositors all over would go to other Goldsmiths and demand their gold and silver…Goldsmiths then had to aggressively collect debts owed to them and sometimes call the loans of the borrowers…meaning the Goldsmith’s had to collect the debt earlier than expected.

Those borrowers had other debts also, so now if the borrowers give the gold and silver to the Goldsmiths, they wouldn't be able to pay their other debts to other people they owed money to.

Then many more people started to think they will not be paid back. So they demanded money owed to them from other people.

Bear Markets and Recessions

All people start selling assets, so they can get money to pay their debts, because everybody owes everybody else money.

Debt is always much more in quantity than actual money, because credit between two parties can be created much easier than physical money can.

In essence, there was a lot of debt chasing very little money.

All the selling and panic depresses asset prices. Which leads to less collateral, to less borrowing, to less economic activity, to recessions and depressions.

And we have been continually repeating this cycle for the past 400 years.

In Conclusion

Celsius, just like 1600’s Goldsmiths, lent out more money than they had. And when people came to collect, the money wasn't there.

So Celsius, just like Goldsmiths, had to lock down the accounts.

Celsius is now looking to obtain money from other places or restructuring debt and assets.

Wall Street Journal reported “Celsius is first looking for possible financing options from investors but is also exploring other strategic alternatives, including a financial restructuring…”

Financial restructuring, most of the time, is done through bankruptcy.

Not Your Keys...Not Your Money!

Stay frosty and solvent people

35% allocated to ph-fund

Sort:  

Hi @fijimermaid, thank you very much for the mention. So, sometimes I think it's good to ask questions sometimes, as usually asking questions usually leads to interesting answers.
As well as this publication that apart from historical to served to make a contrast with the current reality.
And 400 years later, in essence, it is the same financial game of those who are "supposed to take care of our money".

Thank you for the idea.

I think my biggest problem with fractional reserve banking…is debt cycles. It allows people and institutions to incur more debt than they can handle when the economy finally turns bad. And the only way to get out of it is to print more money.

Crypto is no exception. Crypto does the same thing that the regular banking system does. Except crypto is a bit more transparent and decentralized…and it cuts out a lot of the intermediaries.

I don't agree with you...

Loans are not given out free... they are generally over collaterised!!

So, banks give you loan doing credit check, taking collateral.

So, do DEFI platforms...

Now Celcius... I would not know...but its possible they ust facing a liquidity crunch because stEtH peg to ETH fell...

so they have same assets worth less due to market crash...its possible its liquidity crunch.

Although, I do agree that they don't seem to have liquidity to pay back their depositors which is bad indeed!!

I withdrew my deposits from Celsius long back, because its centralised and I wanted cryptos on my custody but I started with Celsius and benifited with interest rates on BTC, ET and LTC plus those CEL tokens...

Anyway...that's all over.

Let's see if they really did not manage their banking operations properly issuing over collaterised loans to protect investors deposits, else I am not sure this thing should happen.

Lets see.

"Loans are not given out free..."

Where did I post this?

well... the way you puted things it looked like you meant, every one operates like a ponzi scheme... they take your money, lend it and hope not all lenders ask for they loaned amount at the same time!!

Insurance works this way, not the world of credit. Credit practice is giving loans for collateral, if that's done properly, there won't be the kind of crisis your saying.

Celcius, may just be facing a liquidity crunch because of steth depeg from ETH and its massive exposure to stETH.. I think that's bad luck as well...

this does not mean all function like NPA banks do...or function like Govt, and big banks... printing excess money etc...

There I think is a false perception!!

Thanks for sharing more on how fractional reverse system works banking system have been running on this system for long and it will continue using other people asset to loan our for interest gains although not being able to reach demand of users when they want to redeem their deposited asset is kind of bad for business thanks for the shear.

Yep and if more people understood that custodial institutions do that with people's money so they can make more money…less people would probably use them. That is why the US government insures legacy banks deposits through the FDIC.