Remember when Domino's started taking photos of your pizza as it was cooking, so you could see your order progress in-app?

(No? You're a self respecting person who doesn't order from Domino's? Well then...).

Take it from us - it happens - and when it first launched, we wondered:

'Who is this for?? Who needs this sort of transparency.'

...but when a pizza shows up to your house with a bite taken out of it - believe us - you'll be happy to have photo evidence that backs up the timeline of events.

(Ready for us to shoe-horn this story into a crypto relevant analogy?)

Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, wants to help bring similar transparency to crypto exchanges - by creating a 'Proof of Reserves' protocol.

(Boom! Stuck the landing).

An exchange showing 'Proof of Reserves,' basically translates to them saying:

"Hey, look - we haven't used your funds as our own personal piggy bank. Pretty neat, right?"

...and if you're thinking this sounds as though these exchanges are asking for a pat on the back, for doing the absolute bare minimum:

You're right! They are.

Unfortunately, the practice of showing proof of reserves is not ubiquitous across the industry.

Exchanges are meant to make money by charging transaction fees on trades and purchases...but as we've all learned recently - some try to make money by secretly investing their customers' money.

Transparency as a standard needs to be adopted by the industry, quickly.

The good news is: Binance (the world's largest exchange) has already agreed to implement Vitalik's proposed 'Proof of Reserves' protocol, in the next few weeks.

And given Binance is a market leader, it's expected others will follow suit.

Nice!