A good doco (well spotted) but you can't help the feeling of deja vu:
Massive corporate fraud to rip off ordinary people and the ones who make the money don't give a shit and don't even think it's doing anything wrong.
It's just 'normal', nothing changes. Business as usual. No one goes to jail.
Yes depressing stuff, but I think bitcoin will eventually bring about an honest business climate again. Reputation will be everything, and con-men and idiots will have nowhere to go, except prison or the woodchipper.
The system lapped up the ICOs (and why not - free money) but they don't like Bicoin
yet. They will when they can fractionally reserve it. Look further into ICE / Bakkt, they want to find a way.
You do good research, V8. When you get a moment, check this podcast on what ICE 'may' mean - it's worth a listen:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/why-ice-bakkt-news-makes-some-crypto-investors-nervous/id1347049808?i=1000417570519&mt=2ICE wont be stopped by the SEC, they own the fucking NYSE (and 22 other exchanges). It might not all be good news they are looking to get into Bitcoin.
And before you say 'Bitcoin can't be in a fractional reserve situation' think again. Because it actually could.
Um... Like I'll be accepting an IOU piece of paper to represent bitcoin. It was done on metals but I'm not so sure the people are that gullible for the same trick. Its interesting to see how ICE wants a piece of the pie. They sure as hell wont send my money to anything crypto related as I found out a couple weeks ago while trying. Ha Bullish!
It already happens, though - when you short (as I am sure people here do on occasion), as you 'borrow' Bitcoin to sell. The Exchange credits or debits accordingly - but the numbers are in a database, no coins are in your personal wallet under your private key. It's not a big step for an institution to 'lend' coins it has custody over, or lend them twice and for these coins to have more than one owner. Some exchanges have done this before and some probably still do. Not all the people want all their bitcoins back at once, so there are always some spare in the cold wallet.
Yes, you or I will always want to have our coins under our own key. It has always been essential for us to do so.
But other investors would probably rather not. Institutions can just 'credit your account' with Bitcoin they do not actually have, as banks do with fiat all the time - thus increasing the supply of Bitcoin out there (on paper). ICE and Bakkt will be custodians of people's coins (how nice of them) and the ability of them to 'use' the coins to make money by rehypothecating them will be part of their business model.
You may not be gullible, but if others accept paper custodianship, then Bitcoins can be rehypothecated and (more) Bitcoins will be bought and sold that do not exist. ICE are big enough to do this in a much bigger way and the market for Bitcoin may well become just like all the other markets.
And there will be far, far more bitcoins being traded out there than actually exist.