https://www.coindesk.com/blockfi-now-offers-a-crypto-deposit-account-with-compound-interestDoes this fill people with excitement or fear?
The involvement of Gemini is certainly a large endorsement but I REALLY don't fancy the idea of sending a large amount of coins to someone who may shout 'compliance' when it's time to withdraw them.
I can imagine lending out to large traders could pay, that's what the DCG are already doing. I'd prefer it if they stuck to their own money doing it.
I certainly wouldn't participate in this.
Firstly, you know that they will be running a fractional reserve, which means that even though they may be trusted now, there is every possibility that they become insolvent or have a bank run scenario in the future. And you don't know what reserve percentage they keep.
Secondly, as you say, when you send coins to a third party investment like this you're always risking the fact that your account may be suspended/frozen, or withdrawals bouncing because they may use the excuse of KYC or AML without having to provide any more details than that. I certainly wouldn't just let of control of my funds like that.
Plus, they're not even the first ones to offer such a thing, in the past several Chinese companies and Magnr all had similar ideas that didn't take off because low interest rates and high risk.