It's at least a good development in the sense that shorters can't short more than there are Bitcoins in the reserves of Bakkt.
i'm not sure that's true. bakkt isn't allowing leveraged trading (yet) but the ICE and the rest of wall street engages in commingling and rehypothecation practices. this effectively inflates the supply available for shorting---and significantly so.
a wall street veteran warned us about what this means:Singh has recommended that regulators financial stability assessments be adjusted to back out pledged collateral, or the associated reuse of such assets, but policymakers have not heeded his wise advice.
Dr. Singh estimates that collateral is re-used 2.0 times (as of year-end 2017). This means only one of the three people who think they own a U.S. Treasury bond, for example, actually does own itnamely, the original owner of the bond and the two parties that reused the bond. The brokerage statements of all three people show that they own the bond, so its impossible for them to detect that behind the scenes only one bond exists!
that means that eventually, on average, every bitcoin in bakkt's vaults will be re-pledged twice. bakkt's supply would essentially be tripled out of thin air. this is one of the ways wall street suppresses prices.