No. of Recommendations: 22
Looks like I was mostly wrong, though I underestimated the real world utility for money laundering once good mixers were available.
...
Today, Morgan Stanley announced that they'll be offering BTC ETFs to their wealth clients. I expect others to follow. I doubt that their clients will be using it to launder money or gamble. I expect some of their clients will be making a small allocation with the intention of diversifying their portfolios with a good hedge against inflation. Should I add them to the pariah list?
Nah.
Morgan Stanley can be added to the list of people making money from the phenomenon--there are lots of ways to do this, many of them legal. The fee gatherers are playing a positive sum game, as they always do. The coin holders should be added to the list of people speculating on the price, hoping it will go up.
Both of those activities are (for now) legal and non-fattening. Neither group is pariah territory, and all power to them. (though there are some people who run coin exchanges or sponsor coins that I wouldn't invite to a party, and if I did I'd count the cutlery afterwards)
The very worst one could say is that perhaps the first group is a bit too cynical, and perhaps the second group is not quite cynical enough?
Jim
