Topic: Bitcoin EFTs are bad for Bitcoin as a decentralized digital currency. (Read 555 times)

You're missing the point: whoever is buying these ETFs is doing it because he doesn't want to deal with KYC on exchanges, buying an external wallet, store your seed phrase, etc etc. Of course it has nothing to do with Satoshi's idea but if someone just wants to make some money speculating on bitcoin, well, nothing wrong with it. At the same time I see this as a lot of free advertising for bitcoin and I'm sure that some people out there will get more curious and after the ETFs they'll get the real bitcoins.

The ignorance runs strong with this one. Very very strong. I suspect you are very young and inexperienced.

Example: Expose one's ROTH IRA to an ETF, pay no taxes on it when I retire and withdraw. Expose my 401K to ETF and my employer matches 100% pre tax. I pay tax when I withdraw but being retired I would be in a much lower tax bracket.

Trading: I can move in and out of an ETF without incurring a fee and much much faster than the network.

Corps: Having a wallet is a giant PIA, the big boys don't do it (Saylor or Musk). ETF is far more palatable. Wait until the sovereign funds poor in.

ETF is now where bitcoin just got it's big boy pants and that's a great thing.

Drawbacks: I can only trade during trading hours, but the big boys don't give a shit that's the way it's always been.

Not ETF but kinda related: I can hold BTC in Fidelity which I trust 1000X more than any exchange and I don't incur any on and off ramp fee's and they handle the tax paperwork perfectly.

conclusion on personal not corp: Is this the only thing? of course not, never hold everything in one place! NEVER! Sure hold your hardware wallet! Keep some on an exchange for ease, I do buy things sometimes as my HW wallet is inbound only, never been outbound. And if you have a substantial amount of BTC, keep a few HW wallets on different technologies.

There ya go youngsta.

 

Any investor that buy ETF are only scum bags that are scared to be their own banks, scared to protect their own keys because they are not man enough to protect it. What is that hard in buying a hardware wallet and push some bitcoin in it? If you can have thousands to buy some bitcoin, I don't see why it's now a difficult thing to buy a hardware wallet that is less than 200 dollars, they rather watch Blackrock goes down and later ask for bailout of bankruptcy than hold the bitcoin by their hands.

To think that they will not ever have the feeling of holding a bitcoin and how to even transacts with it kills the vibe of bitcoin with this ETF stuff but on a second thought, you can't force people to do what they don't want to, they should enjoy their mimic bitcoin and will enjoy the native bitcoin.

Net-net, Bitcoin ETFs are not "bad for Bitcoin as a decentralized digital currency" because in actual reality, Bitcoin was never a decentralized digital currency.

All the ETF is doing is formalizing Bitcoin's place as a pure meme investment, aka a pyramid scheme.

There were thousands of pyramid investments before Bitcoin, and there will be thousands after. There's nothing wrong with investments like this, and with Bitcoin's market cap, I think we can safely say there's a demand for this kind of product.

But the blockchain architecture always made it impossible for Bitcoin to scale to the level of a real digital currency (unlike, say, Haypenny), and it will never be used as one in a mainstream way. And that's... okay!

WOW doomad is waking up
same goes for "inbound balance" a subnetwork channel partner has suggesting the recipient will get when they close channel. is also IOU
it took doomad 6 years to realise this.. hope he doesnt waste more years promoting the LN scheme of IOU

as for

you wont even get bitcoin if you redeem/sell/dispose the shares. you get an allotment of FIAT that ~pegs to bitcoin price (minus broker fees)

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the benefit FIAT earners see of ETF is they can use their pre-tax salary to buy shares exposed to a asset price. and later on, if in the right investment plan not pax tax on the exit. thus benefit from price exposure ,, aswell as saving on tax on both investment and divestment.. but never owning bitcoin inbetween

however actual bitcoiners have to use AFTER tax salary to buy real bitcoin and then pay cap gains on the profit when selling bitcoin

This means that spot ETFs make it easier for investors who are not skilled at investing because they can monitor Bitcoin prices from their own accounts. But I feel there is something strange about the security of Bitcoin if people invest in large companies that have been approved by the SEC because I don't know how investors have complete control over the Bitcoin they invest.
If we usually store Bitcoin in an open source wallet and have control over Bitcoin ownership because we hold the seed transaction and we store it.

We can trust no one other than people who have been tested and are truly trustworthy. What about those who invest in the company. If they don't hold the keys, then it's not the investor's Bitcoin but the company's Bitcoin.

You aren't wrong, but we have to admit the reality. Most people don't feel comfortable trading Bitcoin on a decentralised exchange. They always seek to trade on centralised exchanges. In this scenario, a Bitcoin ETF is a good idea for investors who aren't ready to invest themselves in Bitcoin. Even they don't want to use centralised exchanges; hence, they only focus on ETF companies. Though there is nothing positive for us, there is also nothing negative. Though they don't like on-chain Bitcoin, they have an interest in it.

I suspect that, numerically at least, almost no investors in Bitcoin hold actual private keys themselves on their own person.

Bitcoin is, in practicality, mostly a meme investment instrument, not a currency...

But they aren't "their bitcoins".  That's the whole point.  All they have are IOUs.  Nothing belongs to them.  If people want to get comfortable with that, then they can.  As long as they understand the implications.  But I don't think most of them do. 

If you buy from an ETF, you do not own bitcoins.

Until you withdraw your funds from an Exchange to a wallet where you control the keys, you do not own bitcoins.

The moment you send BTC to a custodian, you no longer own those bitcoins.

But, then again, that's what people have become accustomed to when their fiat wages are paid directly into their bank account.  That money doesn't technically belong to you either, until you withdraw it.  The money in your bank account is the property of the bank.  It belongs to them.  Until you take money out of the bank, it's just more IOUs.  One would think the concept would be to do better in Bitcoin, but people seem largely content to repeat the same mistakes and keep playing with IOUs.

Still, it must be recognized that some people are more comfortable when someone else controls their keys, and in return provides guarantees that their Bitcoins are not at risk. Let's face it, many people only care about Bitcoin because it's price. And they don’t want to deal with the details of Bitcoin wallets, different schemes to counter fraudsters, and so on. Owning Bitcoin is actually a big challenge. We often see Michael Saylor praising Bitcoin on Twitter. But does his company store the bitcoins itself? Nobody knows, but most likely not. Most likely, Sailor is buying virtual bitcoins. Simply because it is more convenient for him.

IMHO, when the big boys are playing in BTC, the US government is less likely to do stupid shit. Tail wags the dog. Just like Gensler got his whooped into approving ETF's.

Well, I just see it that if ETFs are not approved, then a lot of investors may not really be comfortable with their investments because they may feel that the future of their assests are not guaranteed and secured and may not be too forward in their investments but now that ETFs are starting to get approval from SEC it will boast investors confidence to be more optimistic that their assets are secured since it has gained recognition by world standard authorities regardless of the fact that it may seem that the motive of creating Bitcoin which is to stand as decentralized medium of exchange may be countered.

We are basically in uncharted waters for the first time.

When I first got to the forum, the overall sentiment was that we needed to get institutional investors to join the bandwagon and make move for massive adoption to take place.  But mow we got it, I'm increasingly seen more negative remarks about while ETF is bad for Bitcoin.

So far, it is my opinion that we are still on track. It's not all changes that are inherently bad. ETF is a necessary evil that has put us on the map to get massive adoption.

I get what are you talking about, and I kinda agree. This is why I'm not buying it and will keep holding and accumulating BTC in my wallet.

Bitcoin ETF is already a PART of my overall bitcoin portfolio. I keep some in hot wallet, cold wallet and some on my exchange. To have all your bitcoin eggs in one place / technology is just plane stupid.

Anywho, Bitcoin ETF is an EXCELLENT add to my Roth IRA! Why? Because what I put in there I won't pay taxes on when I withdraw for retirement in 13 ish years or so!

My 401k choices are very limited unfortunately, wish I could take advantage of that generous matching.

Just think of all the sovereign funds, pensions and corporations that can add BTC to their portfolio that keeps the boards happy. Think MicroStrategy.

Everyone talks about BTC is for everyone, okay, it's for everyone. stop whining.   

We have a lot of exchanges, not just Binance, and not all centralized exchanges ban the 3 countries you mentioned. Even China or Bangladesh are countries that completely ban bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, but there are still many investors who can use CEX to participate in the market.

I know the benefits of decentralized exchanges because we don't need KYC and there are no country restrictions like centralized exchanges. But besides those two advantages, does it have any other advantages? I even tried the P2P feature on Bisq and had to wait a long time to contact the buyer whereas you will be extremely comfortable with CEX when trading P2P. And there are many features that DEX has not provided to us yet. Furthermore, if DEX is as good as you say, why has it not been able to surpass CEX in terms of transaction volume and influence on the market until now?

You and some people here really hate CEX because it goes against the decentralized nature of bitcoin, but we cannot deny their role and influence on the market.

this is the advantage in this market. you don't need to tell everyone that you are in this market. actually, it is better to be discreet with your crypto transactions rather than disclose what you are doing via your social media channels. you can't please everyone nor convince them about what you are doing, so better take this opportunity to enrich your assets. you are not obligated to teach or educate anyone.


the BTC ETF, surely gives a positive notion that crypto in general is a legit financial aspect. hence, this is still good for this market, particularly in attracting new investors in this market. and once they got acquianted, they will surely explore how to invest directly in these various cryptocurrencies. so the regulation actually may boost crypto adoption. do remember way back before that crypto was considered illegal and used only by fraudulent actors in the market.

If you want a decentralized currency that is peer-to-peer then how is that good for Bitcoin. It only servers to give banks more control of peoples money.

How is ETF making bitcoin centralized? How much are they going to own? Microstrategy owns 200k bitcoin and that's still more than BlackRock. Is bitcoin centralized because of it? I don't think so.
Even if All ETFs together end up owning 500k, that's 2.5% of the supply. It's not going to change anything.


I'm not a socialist and I don't care if they get rich from it. That's how the world is, the rich get richer. The rich can put some money in the bank and earn more than you in your full time job. Is it fair? Probably not, but life isn't fair.


It's your choice if you want to hold  your money or give it to BlackRock. I prefer to hold, but I don't have anything against some rich people and companies holding it.
There's a simple solution if you don't want ETFs to hold your bitcoin. Don't give it to them!

Great point!!  Buy bitcoin and keep quiet.

You could argue that when people feel a need for financial freedom outside the current paradigm of centralized banking they will adopt Bitcoin.  People are free to choose and currently they choose convenience over financial freedom.

Think about the concerted effort to paint bitcoin as a tool for criminals.  The media has the power to control the narrative and move public perception.

The Banks have the money to buy whatever media they need to change the way that people perceive things.

Maybe we just have to accept this is the world we live in?

This group should stand for Bitcoin's intended purpose. If we don't', who will?



  

It’s true that bitcoin was intended to be just that, but the function of a decentralized digital currency has long been transformed into a speculative investment asset. This is quite easy to verify: the share of bitcoins holded and traded is higher than those used as money for the purchase of goods and services.

"Futures ETFs and spot ETFs" was not created to fulfill the purposes of bitcoin. Bitcoin ETF's are bitcoin surrogates for speculation (the enrichment of those who sell it).

Of course anyone see. And what do you suggest? Go out onto the streets with posters saying “don't buy Bitcoin ETF”? and "buy Futures ETFs and spot ETFs true bitcoin"?

Those who understand what's what buy bitcoin and keep quiet.