Quote from: wachtwoord on December 20, 2013, 12:25:11 PM

Quote from: domob on December 20, 2013, 12:21:19 PM

Quote from: marcus_of_augustus on December 19, 2013, 08:12:40 PM

Only leave deposited in a bank what you can afford to lose. Cheesy

I have to remember this, great!

That said, I still have the majority of my net-worth in fiat on the bank ... but it is not near the insurance limit, and in case a global Cyprus happens, I'm sure that the appreciation of my bitcoins will outweight the lost fiat by far.

Don't be so sure. I only have deposited at a bank what I can afford to lose. The rest is in stocks and crypto.

Here's something you might want to take a look at:

http://www.nestmann.com/your-money-isnt-safe-in-any-u-s-financial-institution#.Uth2brTqFOw

It's one of the best explanations of what happened when MF Global went kaboom and imploded. There are other explanations, but this one tells the perspective of an account holder and what he went through.

I mention this because next time it might be a stock brokerage that holds your stocks that implodes instead of a bank in a tax haven country like Cyprus that pulls the robbery.

Note that there was an insurance plan in place, but due to the irregularities of what the main guy Jon Corzine did the insurance people stepped aside and let the fecal matter hit the rotary impeller instead.

Plus, in the case of the US there is not anywhere near enough currency even in existence to bail out a single too-big-to-fail bank if it comes to that.

Another thing is, do you know what is actually supposed to happen in the event of a bank failure where you are? Not the extraordinary stuff like with Cyprus, I mean when it's an ordinary situation and the insurance scheme kicks in to make everybody whole. A lot of people in the US will be in for a really huge surprise if their bank fails because even when the FDIC backs the bank it doesn't just come in and give everybody their money back. There is a standard procedure they follow where they only allow so much per week to be withdrawn, no matter what the bank balance is. If that amount is less than your mortgage, then that's tough and it's all on you unless your mortgage is with the bank that's failing. And this is when it's an ordinary situation. I was stunned to learn how they do things when a bank goes down.