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johncolanduonitoday at 6:29 AM2 repliesview on HN

The Fed has had a wire service (Fedwire) for banks, allowing them to transfer their balances on the Fed’s balance sheet to another bank during settlement, since before the dollar moved off the gold standard. It was initially done with literal telegraphs - not sure at what point it became digital.

It obviously has no pseudo anonymity, is literally the least democratized banking system in existence, and is subject to the government’s whims in a whole host of ways. But it is a digital ledger of massive sums of real dollars (the banks can ask for it in cash if need be), and you couldn’t really steal the money even if you managed to create an unauthorized transfer on some bank’s master account.


Replies

charcircuittoday at 8:15 AM

So why don't any businesses let me Fedwire them money? It turns out unlike the physical version of cash, this "digital version" has hefty transaction fees and a poor UI meaning no business will take it, unlike how almost all physical businesses will take cash.

lmmtoday at 6:41 AM

> the banks can ask for it in cash if need be

Ehhh, can they? I suspect any bank that tried would pretty soon find that it actually couldn't.

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