With Mt. Gox’s recent FAILURE, this is a good article about Crypto currencies.
From all the news surrounding Gox’s demise, it seems pretty certain at this point that it was operating with a fractional reserve, trading with only a small proportion of the money that it was supposed to have. The question now is, how can we be sure that others aren’t doing it, too?
Whether you’re a straightforward bitcoin wallet or an exchange, the hope is that you’ll have enough bitcoins to cover everyone’s accounts, should they all decide to empty their funds at once. This week, large bitcoin companies seemed eager to persuade people that they did.