if indeed it does as it says and offers average joe a easy way to buy/sell ACTUAL BTC and not just contracts/shares ,,,, and also get a cuppa'jo using btc. it will shut up all those "bitcoin is broken because you cant buy coffee with bitcoin" propagandists that just want people to fortknox up btc into LN factories
but isn't bakkt like any other trusted custodial platform? buying coffee through bakkt is just using a trusted off-chain platform, isn't it? coins will be held in bakkt's custody, like any depository bank. right? that doesn't seem better than LN to me.
also, i thought they
were offering futures markets---contracts. the contracts are supposed to settle in coins, but some worry that if bakkt is run like the ICE and other wall street exchanges, that this will lead to fractional reserve practices:
Caitlin Long, who spent more than two decades on Wall Street and co-founded the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition, said that she was partially-pleased by Loefflers post, which answered some questions that she and others had been asking about ICEs handling of bitcoin, specifically about explicit leverage and margin trading.
However, she noted that the post was silent on what she calls hidden leverage, through which institutions commingle and rehypothecate different types of collateral (bitcoins, physical USD, securities, etc.), which involves substituting them for one another on their balance sheet as well as allow multiple parties to declare ownership of the same asset on their financial statements.
These practices, Long says, are standard on Wall Street and could serve to taint bitcoins fixed currency supply with elements of the wider financial system, which relies on fractional-reserve banking.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nyse-owner-bitcoin-market-may-205553702.html