Re: [Taler] What happens when an exchange goes bankrupt?

[Christian Grothoff]

On 7/17/22 13:47, Calvin Burns via Taler wrote:
> Assume a Taler system with multiple independent exchanges.
> I think the economic state of an exchange should be independent of the payment
> system.
> 
> What happens or what is planned if an exchange goes bankrupt?

We generally advocate for the assets that the exchange holds in escrow
for the coins that are in circulation to be treated as a separate
special asset / fund, that would be excluded from the assets that would
be part of the usual asset liquidation process and instead always 100%
go back to the owners of the Taler coins.

> Who takes over what and how?

Well, first of all there is usually a legally appointed person to
organize the "clean" termination of the business, so they would take
over operations of the exchange (for a brief while, to run the
revocation/termination protocol).

> Are there plans/protocols for this scenario?

Yes, there is the revocation protocol that instructs all wallets to
deposit their coins to receive the money back into the originating bank
account.  The exchange would stop executing regular transactions, but
would need to be kept accessible (as a REST endpoint) for long enough
for all wallets to notice and deposit the coins that remain in circulation.