There is a bank run going on. Maybe I am stupid, but how would a legit BTC bank honor timely withdrawals without a Federal Reserve or central bank to step in and become the lender of last resort?
The question is whether there's *only* a bank run going on. There may also be an equity crisis that is masquerading as a bank run.
For example, say someone borrowed from Patrick to invest in Pirate. They may now be slow on interest payments or even making interest payments fully to Patrick out of banked Pirate profits. But that loan will probably go bad unless the debtor opts to pay the principle out of their personal funds. So Patrick may be thinking "I have X bitcoins out there in loans that are current and so will pay on schedule", but he may never see the principle back on those loans.
Things may be much worse than Patrick thinks they are, even if he is 100% completely honest. (Though naive, it's not like lots of people didn't tell him this would happen.)
Maybe the disagreement is on the definition of scam? If you are expecting a level of guarantee that can only be had with FDIC insurance and central bank backing I think you are asking for too much. I don't think most people here would want to socialize the risks associated wiht BCT lending.
A clear statement from Patrick indicating his equity, liquidity, and obligations would go a long way towards setting reasonable expectations and allow his depositors to track whether he's meeting those expectations.