Delta Financial Offers Interest-Bearing Bitcoin Accounts

I was actually wondering the other day if this sort of thing was bound to show up sometime soon, although I'm not qualified to think through the logistical implications. I had been reflecting on my savings account claiming to be "compounded daily!" despite only showing me the result of that compounding on a monthly basis, and wondering whether it was a technical, legal, or some other reason that they couldn't show me a daily update. That got me thinking about the almost "instant" nature of Bitcoin and wondering if someone would come up with interest on Bitcoin and give you daily, or for that matter, instantaneous, updates on your interest amount. I can see no mathematical reason why it should not be possible in either currency, although I suppose it might simply be more "fun" than useful or necessary in either case.

"The firm will cover deposited funds with its own reserves"

It will be interesting to see if the Bitcoin community embraces fractionally reserved savings schemes. With the eventual hard limit on the underlying asset, it is difficult to imagine this going on anywhere near as long as our own fiat experiments, but monetary systems never cease surprising me.

The site offers a 5% minimum interest rate. With such a (relatively) high return, the risks are also high, as your money is used to leverage trading on Bitcoin itself.

Taking such a risk with a currency that can move 5% in hours seems foolish or exactly the right strategy, I'm not sure which.