@1Referee. Agreed. However, exchanges already do have shit on us. They ask for our identities, control the amount we can withdraw and might also freeze our accounts if they found more shit they do not like.
Also if an exchange begun offering interest, would you trade in the one without or the one with? I reckon many people will go to the one with.
The exchange is forced to do all of that as the price of keeping on the right side of the legislative types. They ain't doing it for fun. Presumably it adds tens of millions of dollars in annual extra costs to somewhere of Coinbases's size.
Someone somewhere is going to voice the idea of above board fractional reserve at some point. I'm extremely interested to see how it's taken. Though we like to think there'll be no shortage of outrage, most people will probably stampede towards it if there's the prospect of a piffling return in it for them.
It's odd how this has remained an unvoiced subject considering it happens everywhere else and I wonder how many crypto businesses have discussed this between themselves. The first place to do it may be shunned or everyone rushes to match them after watching for a while.
