I guess most stackers know about the LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) and their daily fix for gold and silver. It does just reflect the prices fiddled together on the big exchanges, though. Which is not surprising, since the board members are representatives from the big banks.
Thanks for adressing the coming futures trade of BTC. "We'll see how this plays out." Well, yeah, that's what I'm worried about. If the big banks start trading BTC on a cash setttled base, everything is possible. They could decide to take a serious effort, and go in with something like 30 or 40% of the BTC market cap - whats 50 billion to them, if that really can move something to their advantage. And then they slam the BTC price (for the futures) down to $200 or something. And keep it there, just as its done with gold every day. Thats what I'm suspecting.