I am going to write another post, centering more on the central argument of yours (gold standard vs. Bitcoins), which I found very interesting.

When money is deposited into a savings account under a 100% reserve standard, it can not be accessed for a specified period of time.

This is because the money is not residing with the bank, since the bank has lent it out.

Under a 100% reserve standard, the bank acts more like a warehouse than a bank. It charges fees for the storage of money unless the account holders agree to let the bank lend money out on time deposit.

People find normal that banks pay them interest on their deposits. How in the world is the bank suposed to profit that money if they are safekeeping it in a vault? Since the people don´t reject interest on their deposits, I am sorry but they are passively authorising fractional reserve banking.

Regarding clearing, if a financial institution accepts bitcoins as currency and they safekeep the bitcoins in their vaults, — “big e-wallets” — then they would have Bitcoins in their assets and account entries for Bitcoins in their liabilities.

Then payments within bank´s clients would be a simple transfer from one account to another with not need to move around the bitcoins and all the network verification process would be avoided. And also, banks could make just net payments between them, instead of moving back and forth every single transaction between them.

If the bank is honest, that´s all right. But what if the bank begins to offer interests on Bitcoin deposits and clients begin to accept it?

Clearing services would not create the same situation as fractional reserve banking. While the services could engage in direct theft of money from the pool, this is totally different than being able to perpetuate a debt based ponzi scheme.

Because Bitcoins are used directly in exchanges, and are not represented by receipts or tokens, they can not be used in a fractional reserve ponzi.

Once you use clearing services, then you could be exactly in te same situation than fractional reserve banking because you stop moving bitcoins all the time and instead you move account entries representing Bitcoins.

Gold receipts under 100% reserve gold standard could not be issued without physical gold backing unless the bank breaks the law, which I agree is much easier than issuing fake Bitcoins.

When I say “counterfeiting” – I’m really saying “fractional reserve banking”

I totally agree that clearing services can play an important role in facilitating transactions, and I have no problem with them. What I’m trying to get at though is that the supply of Bitcoins can not be arbitrarily inflated through banking practices, unlike gold receipts.