Sorry if this is offtopic, but this was one of the aspects that I found very interesting about Bitcoin.
Because it's a protocol, in theory you just need to have the software installed in your computer and you can start being a bank.
This is similar to the web for publishing. You just need to plug your computer to the internet and start serving your website. Before this if you didn't have the time, energy and luck of finding a publisher it was hard to publish a book.
This is a huge simplification but I just wanted to highlight one interesting aspect of cryptocurrencies.
There was a short period in the USA, known as the wildcat banking era in the 1840's, when it was indeed possible for anybody to setup a bank. There's quite an entertaining paper from the time that describes the resulting chaos:
Bitcoin software on your computer allows you to start being a bank in the exact same manner that a table in a public place and an advertising banner is sufficient for being a physical bank.
You technically can provide banking services (the core one, of course, being moneylending) with that, and this has been traditionally done that way since literally biblical times, but nowadays that would be just as illegal as doing the same with Bitcoin.
Right, we still have to deal with local laws anyway.
However, consider that technically I could create a "New PayPal" as I could receive digital payments and give cash to my customers. Of course this doesn't cover the legal aspect.
If you'd want to release something like PayPal in 1998, the only possibility is being rich or having rich friends. That's the only way credit card companies are going to consider doing business with you.
Now with Bitcoin you're relieved of that obstacle but of course you have to still deal with the law.
Because it's a protocol, in theory you just need to have the software installed in your computer and you can start being a bank.
This is similar to the web for publishing. You just need to plug your computer to the internet and start serving your website. Before this if you didn't have the time, energy and luck of finding a publisher it was hard to publish a book.
This is a huge simplification but I just wanted to highlight one interesting aspect of cryptocurrencies.