moat
Explanation
This comic shows a person visiting what appears to be a bank or financial institution. The customer says something like "Hi, I'd like to access my bank account" or similar.
The banker explains that in order to prevent a bank run, he has transferred the customer's physical assets and banking negotiations to a castle surrounded by physical knights and a great ring of flames. The customer asks: "So can I get my money out?" The banker responds: "Absolutely. Anyone volunteering to joust through the moat of endless conflagration can line up right over there."
In the lower panels, someone reflects: "The old system was the 'standing army' -- a tiny number of banks subsidized by threatening to destroy anyone who tried to withdraw." Another character responds: "Maybe add some more moats and spires?"
The comic satirizes the increasingly complex and hostile barriers that financial institutions (and perhaps cryptocurrency or fintech platforms) put between customers and their own money. What starts as a reasonable-sounding security measure -- "we're protecting your assets" -- escalates into a medieval fortress designed not to protect the customer's money but to prevent the customer from accessing it. The moat, knights, and flames are a literal visualization of the metaphorical barriers banks create: withdrawal limits, holding periods, verification processes, and fine print that make it nearly impossible to actually get your money when you want it. The suggestion to add "more moats and spires" parodies how the response to every financial crisis is to add more complexity rather than addressing the fundamental problem.