In contrast to previous item about the Federalist atypically hitting a point, Taibbi atypically misses.

He has done proper reportorial legwork on one bitcoin-related “loan company”. He found and documented its connections to Wall Street. But many commentators (ahem!) recognized the problem 10 years ago, and many good reporters have already followed the trails to their ends. Taibbi doesn’t seem to recognize the existing coverage.

(Reminds me of an old Bob and Ray routine where Intrepid Reporter Wally Ballou is interviewing a bank president about a change in loan interest rates, while the bank is obviously being held up by robbers with machine guns.  Ballou apologizes for the noisy environment and continues the interview.)

Taibbi concludes:

But make no mistake: this is the definition of an “opaque ledger.” If every crypto company will struggle this badly to answer basic questions like Where’s your money? or What’s your risk?, the storm hasn’t even started yet.

Nope, the storm, or more precisely the drought, started in Feb 21 when the central banks turned off the QE counterfeit faucet. By now the drought has completed its work. Hundreds of fake companies have already dried up, and the rest are being kept wet  by a couple of whales, just long enough for the other whales to leap out of the stranded tidepool and back into the ocean.