Bitcoin Forum

Cointelegraph:
"Bakkt has announced the coming launch of its much-anticipated platform for daily and monthly futures in the United States in a blog post on Aug. 16. Having received approval from the necessary regulators, the launch is scheduled for Sept. 23. "

The news is generally positive. There is no doubt it can cause many new investors to be attracted to bitcoin. We see this news affected the price once it was published. It caused the price to rise about 4% and now it is traded at about 10,400 dollar.
Besides this positive effect, there are some things worry me. I would like to know your opinions.

1. Third parties involvement: I personally prefer bitcoin to be sent and received peer to peer directly between wallets without involvement of third parties.
2. Bitcoin should be a currency: We all know that bitcoin has been created to be a currency. But these days people look at it as an investment. BAKKT will keep us far away from the main purpose of bitcoin.
3. Regulations: BAKKT had been in negotiations with United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission. So, it will likely cause more regulations to appear.

What do you think?

With or without BAKKT, you can still used your bitcoin to send and received. So I don't understand your concerns here.

You can still treat it like a currency if you want. It became an investment vehicle when the price moves from $1-$100 in the beginning and the rest is history. Again I don't see your point of BAKKT keeping us away from the main purpose of bitcoin. The only problem we have right now is that there are few online merchants that accept bitcoin directly. If they do, they still need a third party like BitPay or BTCPay Server. There is also LN in the horizon for a P2P but adoption is very slow as well.

Regulations will likely appear in the future and we have to accept that fact.

It depends on the taste of each person, if they feel safe to send bitcoin without third-party services, I think that's just fine. But still, I would advise you to transact through third parties to maintain the security of your funds.

Back to first answer, it depends on each person's taste. Although many people make bitcoin as an investment, bitcoin will still be a currency and not an investment like stocks & gold. Moreover, the bitcoin market is a market that has high fluctuations, this is very profitable for investors. In the future, anything can change depending at that time developments and we cannot stop many bitcoin holders from continuing to aim at bitcoin, it is not possible because bitcoin itself is decentralized.

I think there is no need to mention crypto regulations in the United States, because even if they don't exist, the rules will continue to grow in that country. The United States is known for its strict regulations but if BAKKT offers a win-win business, maybe the United States will consider this. Because what I see, the United States is more inclined into business.

you have good points here specially about bitcoin should be treated as a currency and the fact that it can bring in more investors. but i disagree with saying this recent rise was because of this news. the recent rise was not exactly a rise, it was some sort of reverse correction (recovery) that price came back from the unrealistically lower price that it went to for a short time.

as for Bakkt itself i think it is more hyped up than it really is. this is exactly like ETFs and Futures trading. both were super hyped up in 2017 when they initially began, ETFs kept being rejected so were forgotten, Futures trading went through and it didn't change anything other than in some cases increase the volatility.

Very true, any new Bitcoin improvement proposal out on the table attracts lots of hype, at times regardless of it's actual expected effect on the industry. This could be a FOMO attempt  to get more investors in.
My advice would be; buy bitcoin for Bitcoin and not some externally sourced project.

I never thought that BAKKT will in anyways do any good for the crypto community. More regulation means more curb and control over cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. The perception of Bitcoin as an investment option/commodity was not created by them. Unfortunately, we did it. We thought the more people think Bitcoin as an Investment option should increase its mass adoption. We were able to increase the mass adoption but in a negative way.

The sole concept was to replace Fiat with a global decentralized currency controlled by everyone. I do not think this will be possible in the near future. 

Bakkt is really just one overstated story, so far they launch x times and I doubt next date will be final. Its launch or another delay will not affect the price, as this has not been the case so far, so it's really ridiculous to claim that price is go up $400 just because of Bakkt is announced something again.

Bitcoin is currency, but many just looking at Bitcoin as store of value, something similar as gold through the history. I do not see anything wrong in that, people will use it in both ways, as they see to fit them at some point.

Regulation is an inevitable process in adaptation of Bitcoin, it would be really naive to think that the world governments would allow something like Bitcoin to replace today's financial system just like that. We know that power is in money, and if you control money you have power to control people.

Bitcoin will not be a currency in the next few years. It is much more likely to be a store of value, being a main competitor to gold, not fiat.

Im not using bitcoin as a currency anymore, because I regret it when the price goes up. Im using litecoin instead, which values less than bitcoin. But I only use it when I find gatekeeping along the way.

Fact is, people will not spend bitcoin while it is valuing. Maybe five years from now, when institutions have adopted it, and governments officialize it for the sheeple, the price will tank and then we will be able to spend it, instead of selling it in a exchange.

Also, merchant adoption is too low right now, and most of the time, you will need to buy gift cards to be able to spend it.

It makes no particular difference the average person.

It does to big money. It allows institutions to buy and hold BTC in a manner that's fully regulated by the big cheeses every step of the way. On top of that it's all in the hands of one of the most trusted operations in finance.

If that doesn't tempt a few dollars that were previously a bit shy then I'm a Dutchman. The effect may be subtler than most are expecting but it'll be there.

Merchant adoption is low relatively speaking (i.e. comparing it to PayPal, etc). If you look at how little people actually use Bitcoin as a currency, you'll consider its existing merchant adoption to be on the higher side. Too many merchants hope that people will spend their gains at their websites, yet nothing really happens.

If you also add that BitPay is being a dick making Bitcoin look bad and expensive as payment option, why would people still use Bitcoin to pay online?

If you buy gift cards to "spend Bitcoin", that may be a convenient workaround for some people to convert their profits or earnings, but other than that, it's nothing that adds anything useful over conventional payment options.

This type of news is called psychological news and it is the kind of news that the market needs but will not change anything.
As long as there are no clear regulatory rules, institutional money will flow shamefully.
In terms of price, the price is now high, so the rise will be a correction to the previous friction that led to the collapse below $ 9700.
So we are with the two-week news that improves the mood of investors rather than a real addition to long-term investment.

Regarding your points, I do not think that the difference between investment and currency is a core difference is the possibility of use and not the possibility of speculation. BTC is a currency with the possibility of investing in it and not vice versa.

The original intent of Satoshi Nakamoto invention of bitcoin is for its use as a currency, Bakkt is going to treat bitcoin as a commodity or investment vehicle and not as a currency. Short term, it may be good for the price, the better appreciation of bitcoin is suppose to be from retail use.Bitcoin does its own thing, Bakkt may not impact much on the price. 4%  growth in price is just normal fluctuation for btc. 

I disagree with this idea that Bitcoin "should be a currency" and the judgment that people are using it wrong. It's not for you or anyone else to decide what Bitcoin is or how it should be used, any more than it's our place to tell people not to invest in gold.

I think the point of Bitcoin was about freedom, not creating a currency and establishing rigid norms about how people should use it. Bitcoin's economic design and fundamentals only make it rational to treat BTC like an investment. People shouldn't be blamed for that. It was inevitable.

The news about Bitcoin trading platforms were big in the last year and there was clear correlation between them and the price, but I think people have already tired from them, and the market is now less sensitive towards them. So, we might get a small bump, or maybe it will even coincide with Bitcoin's own growth (remember, we're in the bull market now), but I doubt there will be any strong effect of BAKKT's launch.

And i support on your side.

If people have to think that Bitcoin should be a currency i think it will raise a new problem since in the first place most of the government in other countries doesn't fully the cryptocurrency. Let Bitcoin as what we used to as an investment or a payment for any product/services, by this we are all having the freedom to use it freely anywhere in the world.

Bakkt can be great for bitcoin
I agree with you that bitcoin has to be more like a currency so Bakkt is all about it
Various merchants can oijn Bakkt even big names like Amazon.Starbucks etc
People will have choice to pay with bitcoin or fiat
Bakkt physical futures  allow participants to earn bitcoin .Bakkt futures will be different than all that paper futures what we have now
Regulation are often good.It is better to have regulated real trading than speculative full of dirty tricks trading what we have now
There is one condition Bakkt needs real big volume if not then all that talking about institution interested in bitcoin will just illusion 

As far as those 3 concerns, regulations are coming hard and fast.  Baker will not really change any of that.  And third parties while not optimal for crypto is inevitable, non hard core crypto "people" would rather not deal p2p and trust an institution, at least for now until it becomes more comfortable for the masses.

I think all these kinds of systems to tap into the regular economics will not happen.
They let us jump through the hoops and then mostly say no.
Bitcoin will show economics for what they are.
Regulations and Bitcoin don't go well together.
Economics work because of regulations.
This is like opening Pandoras box. Bitcoin could ruin the economic world on which a lot is hinged.

It is natural that this is happening. We don't want the world diving back into the wild wild west.

We didn't need Bakkt in the past and don't need it in the future. Bakkt is a professional institution-- they have tricked the public into thinking that they would be launching multiple times without an approval in the pocket.

I call that an attempt to manipulate the price. Just after we broke the $6000 mark last year they yet again announced that they wouldn't be going live any time soon, and the price then took another dive to fall below the $4000 mark.

As for the impact of Bakkt on Bitcoin, I doubt it will be generating much volume. It will be similar to LedgerX that people seem to be hyped up about, but only does like $40-$50 million in volume per month.

It's much easier for retailers to use Coinbase or CashApp to buy Bitcoin. What do they need Bakkt for? There are plenty of derivative exchanges available already. Institutions will stick to CME.

in other words you are saying that bitcoin is going to die in a few years because not being a currency means bitcoin becomes useless and that is its death. it is exactly the same as saying gold will no longer be used as a jewelry, and other use cases and will only be used as a store of value!!! that would be the death of gold.
it is the use cases that give everything their value.

that is not "fact" it is your guess and a wrong one.
if you check the stats of the payment processors like BitPay for example or even ask any merchant that has been accepting bitcoin payment for a while they all tell you that people spend bitcoin a lot more when it is rising!

Their launching will really be of great news to the bitcoin market, it will surely make the price of bitcoin to climb high, because all we have been waiting for is regulation and if this system to be launch can really attract regulators, then there is really great hope for bitcoin, and for third party involvement in exchanging of bitcoin, I think that one is in our hands, because the provision has already been made there, we are just the one that have not accepted the solution.

There are lots of dapp exchanges to do that, but how many of us has used it, But, we rather prefer to use those centralized exchanges, yes bitcoin is a currency, but people are more interest in the benefit of It, but as they use it for investment, they also begin to learn about it more and also do use it for lots of transactions.

I don't blame people for investing in bitcoin. I am personally an investor. I have invested in bitcoin and I am hodling and till now I haven't used bitcoin for buying something. So, there is no problem with investing. But I still believe that bitcoin should be a currency.
When some one talks about the advantages of bitcoin, the main feature of bitcoin which is discussed its decentralization and peer to peer transactions. Bitcoin has been created to secure transaction without 3third party involvement. People invest in bitcoin because they expect this purpose will be finally reached and now they try to buy it at low prices. Assume that bitcoin is no longer supposed to be a currency? What do you think will happen? Don't you think it will lose any many of its fans ans investors? In this case, not only bitcoin is not a currency, but it's no longer a good investment.

It is a double edged sword at this point. Nobody in crypto really cares about Bakkt anymore but nobody would mind them existing neither. It is better to have them than not have them because it is creating some sort of adoption and attention towards bitcoin investments but we don't care because it doesn't make that much change in the price and is too small to care.

It means if it doesn't happen we would be let down small for like maybe 5 to 10 seconds but continue our life but if it happens than we will feel a very tiiiiny improvement in crypto forever, so of course people prefer them to finally start but believe me it is not an important thing enough that we think about it daily or something. Maybe bakkt users do care about it if they are really looking to invest into it.

I think that the BAKKT are a great current inclusion, for more than 3 months I have observed peculiar movements in the market, when the Bitcoin was at a price of $ 6k began to rise, with increasing volume, what I think is that some Investors, realizing that the BAKKT is approved, began buying Bitcoin, regardless of its price, and those who had bought in almost $ 3k it was very good business to sell them at $ 6k, even higher, because investors see more confidence in This market, which brings as a positive consequence that the price of Bitcoin increases much more, it could be speculated that the bullish trend process will be very exciting, and with the approval of the ETFs it will be something much more exciting, in fact in some My publications stated that we were in a stage of market accumulation, that we had to buy bitcoin, which was recommended, and is still recommended, although I could not predict the next Bitcoin ATH, but Due to these movements I think that the next bitcoin bullish rally will be very juicy when it reaches its peak in the Distribution stage.

He's just referring to the fact that gold's primary use case is store-of-value. The vast majority of gold is just hoarded and held. That doesn't mean zero people transact (buy, sell, barter, use for various purposes) with it.

Bitcoin already reflects this same dynamic. I agree with him that it's likely to primarily be a store-of-value asset. Like gold, it would only become useless if people stop transacting entirely. I doubt that will happen.

People will never stop buying and selling bitcoin. Because bitcoin has been already proven. It has many applications other than being a store of value. Gold is being used for more than 3000 years ( hope I am not wrong about the oldness). But bitcoin has only one application (this application is one of biggest human creations). Without this application there will be no utility and the hype will be finally over,

gold may technically have other applications, but they represent a tiny share of its market. if it weren't valued as commodity money, the market would be worth only a tiny fraction of it current value. people don't line their jewelry boxes with aluminum necklaces and their vaults with bars of steel, do they? ;)

bitcoin is essentially another form of commodity money. people will (and do) accept it for payment (currency) because of its underlying scarce commodity value, much like people accept gold coins for cash/trade. it's the same principle.

we don't need all the world's transactions to use bitcoin in order for billions of people to be part of the network. and that's where bitcoin derives its value from---the network effect. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law) back of the envelope numbers: if 20% of the world transacted with bitcoin 10 times a year, that's still ~ 500 transactions per second on the bitcoin network. that's much more throughput than bitcoin can support, even considering all offchain solutions at present, so let's not get ahead of ourselves!

One thing to consider is how many people/entities are already using exchanges to store funds, or custodial wallets like Plus Token. Tightly regulated and licensed custodians backing futures in the US are much less likely to exit scam. They are also unlikely to expose funds to online wallets. So from that angle, moving away from questionable, fly-by-night exchanges is ultimately an improvement even if institutions are still relying on third parties for custody.


Is it not a currency?

The reason why Bakkt is slightly different from the Bitcoin futures that launched on the CBOE and the CME in Q4 2017 is that they are physically settled. The CBOE/CME are only cash settled futures.

Why is this important? Its important because a physically delivered future actually takes away a bitcoin from the entire supply. So when there is less supply, more demand it causes price to go up.

Market makers will need to buy thousands of BTC if they want to market make for the BAKKT futures. This is bullish.

However does it mean the price will go up? Its hard to tell. Reason why is because BAKKT was delayed so many times in the past that people generally don't care when it launches.

The timing looks good. David's model is eyeing mid-late September (https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BTCUSD/echuwPWt-Downward-Pressure-Continues-Till-Mid-to-Late-September-2019/) for resumption of the long term uptrend. I'm using Tim West's TAM model and I'm expecting the same thing as David, more or less. September 23rd sounds just about right.

In other words, I'm expecting a rally around that time anyway. I'm sure people will attribute it to BAKKT. ;)

Even if this prediction is true, what you are referring to is a kind of technical analyze and is not related to BAKKT. If the BAKKT announcement was supposed to affect the price the rise had been already started.

Anything that will attract people to take step in investing in bitcoin is really a welcome development and I think that with this BAKKT announcement to launch come September, many investor who believe that the launching will affect the price of bitcoin positively would have been making some investment right now, and also, those that will take advantage of whatever offer they have to the public will also need to make investment in bitcoin.

At least, more money will still enter the market, even if it will not be that very big to cause the value to rise beyond our expectation, the launching date I already here, in few weeks’ time now, we will really know Id there will be an effect of it on the price of bitcoin or not, and even if it does not, bitcoin investment is still not a waste.

Any announcement from BAKKT will be ignored by the market at this point. The market doesn't care because they've missed every deadline and nobody believes them anymore. They're like "the boy who cried wolf."

The only chance BAKKT has at catalyzing a price move is if/when it actually launches.