Bitcoin Forum

 Well, this was a line provided by Edward Snowden. Yeah, the famous whistle blower Edward. He believes that the more applications are being filed, there are risks involved. Although the money being poured into the asset will help it's price to go higher, but these institutions could get more power and influence over the regular person when it comes to decisions and actions taken as regards Bitcoin.
 Edward also noted that as ETF applications are getting popular especially as big firms are the ones lobbying for a spot, there's the tendency of it "taming Bitcoin".
 Is this true or he's just talking out of a hunch?

https://cryptopotato.com/edward-snowden-believes-bitcoin-etfs-are-taming-btc-bitcoin-amsterdam-live/

I share some of his position on this issue. Bitcoin ETFs will increase the price but it will attract more people to centralised platforms. People might not be exposed to the true nature of bitcoin because they will assume that third parties are indispensable. It is great to see many financial institutions having an interest to put in more money into the bitcoinspace but it will also give them some level of influence to manipulate the market. As we celebrate the profit that these centralised platforms might trigger due to their investment, we should also be prepared to shield ourselves from their excesses.

But I don't think Bitcoin ETFs is taming bitcoin because they are not changing the coin but the process of investing in it. Within a few years, the imperfections of these services will be exposed and investors will gradually learn and switch to decentralized platforms.     

He also spoke about the pseudonymity of bitcoin and the need to improve privacy which points to the fact that mixers and tumblers services are important. For the few years that I have been following the Bitcoin conference, the current one has some speakers I respect.      

No doubt about this because if such power gets into the hand of this few, they will abuse it and then turn it into a capitalist market which is not how Satoshi planned it. Could this be the reason Gary Gensler is stalling to approve them though?

I don't think that Bitcoin ETFs will tame Bitcoin because so far more people are more interested in "real Bitcoin" than Bitcoin ETFs. However, it should be noted that the increasing influence of centralized platforms on bitcoin investments makes them more capable of increasing prices and manipulating the market to their needs. And with this, the potential for people to become familiar with Bitcoin ETFs increases and perhaps the potential for Bitcoin ETFs to tame Bitcoin may exist. Therefore, before this happens, we as Bitcoin-enthusiast must better educate people that only invest in Bitcoin, not Bitcoin ETFs, because that is the only genuine investment in Bitcoin.

I haven't listened to Snowden's speech at the Bitcoin Conference in Amsterdam. I might, though. It's just a little more than 20 minutes, after all. But I think he's saying what's obvious. It's clear that institutions joining in the Bitcoin game implies lack of privacy. These are centralized institutions; registered, licensed, compliant to the laws, and so on. The people's freedom as to how they would like to use their Bitcoin, itself a currency that supposed to represent freedom, would be significantly diminished or even gone when they're within a centralized entity.

Although people will use more centralized services with bitcoin as adoption grows, onchain transactions will always have the same nature and decentralization.

They might be more rare as times passes, as people willl make their transactionsin centralized services (stock exchangesfor etf)

But bitcoin nature will.not change, neither bitcoin on chain transactions

Whatever the effect will be, it's pretty much inevitable anyway. If the institutions wants a bitcoin ETF, who's going to stop them from having a bitcoin ETF? Satoshi? Lol. Our only hope that an ETF would bring positive things besides an increase in price — being, the fact that people will hopefully realize that self-custody is almost necessary.

This is just yet another attempt to try to divorce bitcoin from the people, long time ago people used gold and silver bullion to buy what they needed, eventually governments convinced people to use a representation of gold and silver in the form of certificates, and then governments stopped backing those certificates and created fiat currencies, so this is the same, but the difference this time around is that the bitcoin network will remain and everyone that wants to avoid falling into that trap only needs to keep using bitcoin as usual.

Normally it looks like it OP, but I feel like ETF is benefiting for the government and other powerful entities, and people don't care, the focus is still on Bitcoin itself not the ETFs, haven't you notice that the noise is going down and slowly fading away? Even if ETF can pump Bitcoin it's just a matter of some time, the hype will wash off as Bitcoin will still do it's thing, it's all about the chart, not some ETF approval.

Let's not focus the mind on ETF approval, if it never happens it could be a black swan opportunity, imagine they come out in the open tomorrow and announce that the ETFs are canceled till many years in the future, it could cause panic and massive sell off, maybe it could bring Bitcoin back to 12k who knows? These people are manipulating us, and I don't believe anything on the news anymore.

What if Gensler is acting on the order he was given? What if all those public video of him in those hearings are acting, to put up a show? As if they are against him, as if Gensler is to be blamed? And maybe that's why he is still in the office today, they should have fired him already, and I believe all these dramas have connections.

You're right, we have almost no choice, we can't stop or avoid ETFs, so whatever consequences ETFs have, we need to adapt to them. Like we told the government, if they can't stop bitcoin then join us and now we need to apply this to ourselves too. Most people's goal is profit, so let's hope that when the SEC approves ETFs, it can help bitcoin prices skyrocket giving us profits.

I think even without ETFs, but once large institutions and companies get into the game, it's inevitable that bitcoin will become more centralized.

What if the council bought ETF and made heavy inflation to pump their investment?

You missed my angle on the subject..

My angle is I can buy it in the bank then. Regulated and tax-reported.

The man is right; institutional involvement in Bitcoin, especially through ETFs, raises power dynamics questions. Big institutions, with their enormous finances and influence, may potentially dominate Bitcoin. This influence may lead to decisions that dont benefit the typical person. This is possible but not guaranteed. Bitcoin emphasizes decentralization and individual power.

However, ETFs generate a lot of money, which can enhance Bitcoin's price. What if such price increase compromises Bitcoin's essence? Worth the trade-off? Should we risk Bitcoin becoming “tamed” as Edward suggests? We should always question, analyze, and navigate these waters with open eyes and ears, not whether hes right or wrong.

Snowden is over the edge. You better find a real hero.

Maybe we should just get this straight once and for all, approval or no approval cannot hold bitcoin bunder these institutions, what we should know is that they were also depending on the bitcoin network to make their own way out for their potential investors to have their business running, what we should focus on is the bitcoin network and nothing much on these institutions and their ETF approval status because they are not directly investing in bitcoin, they only make use of the market price to stake their own bonds, their effects on bitcoin price may not be tangible enough than the incidence that comes with the approval or no approval breaking news which causes some stir on the internet.

I think Edward's concerns about Bitcoin ETFs are worth considering, it's important to be aware of the potential risks involved, especially as institutions become more involved in the Bitcoin ecosystem. I also believe that Bitcoin ETFs have the potential to be a positive development for Bitcoin they could make it easier for more people to invest in Bitcoin, which could help to increase its adoption and liquidity.

I am optimistic about Bitcoin ETFs, I believe that they have the potential to be a positive development for Bitcoin, but I also believe that it's important to be aware of the potential risks involved.

 I feel we should look critically on this issue Snowden brought up because it's something that should concern the regular crypto user(Bitcoin in particular). ETFs are centralized inherently and this could clash with Bitcoin's decentralized nature and do not incorporate the benefits of cryptocurrencies. They also introduce the concept of "paper" Bitcoin which represents Bitcoin on a theoretic level rather than practical and when users can't access their or withdraw the "paper" Bitcoin? Probably a similar incidence to the FTX will occur.

So the chance that a Bitcoin ETF is currently coming is high I think. The SEC has only a few hours left before the deadline to go to the next round of the fight against Grayscale. If they dont the trust will be converted into a Bitcoin ETF. Maybe Edward Snowden knows something more like we do. Hopefully we will read some good news in the next few days. 

When a Bitcoin ETF was approved, there was great hope of getting people closer and more familiar with Bitcoin. As time goes by, they may realize that their investment in bitcoin needs custody instead of trusting it to a centralized third party, so let's leave it for now and we can expect changes later from them.

The impact will still be there whether it is negative or positive, but a positive impact is much more to be expected. Apart from being able to increase prices, massive adoption will occur when a bitcoin ETF is approved. People are increasingly able to see bitcoin and its innovation, so I think a bitcoin ETF could be something valuable.

There is always going to be this and that possibilities but, do we really think these companies could ever come together and sensor Bitcoin? Could they ever agree on one thing and act on it?
I highly doubt that. There are always young to be different goals for each company and these companies would always act in their interest at a particular time. I don’t expect or hope to find a forum that would bring these companies together.

Also, there isn’t a guarantee or any chance that would mean, you using Bitcoin ETF companies would mean your coins have got to stay there. There are chances for withdrawals and the majority of hodlers out there and traders will always be more than a combined company would have, I think.

The more exposure that could come out of ETF programs, the more people would seek to be more private and decentralized on there transactions which would result in not having to stay on ETF centralized companies.

I don't understand what he is trying to say here, decisions and actions regarding BTC has always been collective and based on consensus from the whole community, and nothing is going to change that, no one person is more important in the BTC network than the other, that's why it is an open source project that anyone can freely contribute to. Surely some institutions and companies will have the money to buy more coins, but because BTC is decentralized it means they can't take any arbitrary decisions about the network.

No, ETFs are ETFs and Bitcoin is Bitcoin. The ETF hype is all speculation value and if it goes through as planned and hoped, then as soon as an ETF is not only filed but approved, we will see a larger spike in price. At least that is what I think will happen. Don't take my words for financial advice. But the price aside, Bitcoin intrinsically does not require ETFs. How could it possibly tame Bitcoin? All it does is tame the already tamed. ETF Investors, in other words are the ones making a Bitcoin investment. Or at least a piece of paper says they are.  ::)

take a look at greyscale which filed a ETF YEARS ago
they are owned by a company called DCG which also paid a LARGE multimillion sum to "blockstream" which is a bitcoin core founder team of devs.
then look at the changes to bitcoin directly done by the blockstream devs and how those same blockstream devs now control things like LN (the subnetwork promoted as being the sole solution to bitcoin usage) and how blockstream also control alot of the LN nodes and a large amount of bitcoin nodes and bitcoin DNS seed service nodes

https://dcg.co/portfolio

its also worth noting many of the bitcoin drama events of 2015+
such as the gavin andresen/jgarzic alternate route for bitcoin (bloq) and the NYA agreement push which pretended to be an option but was just a bait and switch to just change bitcoin into the path blockstream(via DCG demands) wanted

when you notice the NYA agreement was headed up by DCG and bloq is part of the DCG portfolio alongside blockstream you start to see all options are actually just one option which is the business idea's of DCG, which will benefit the grayscale ETF

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as for users buying ETF shares. this introduces new industry of investors that only order investments through the old fashioned stocks/shares market. which will only put money into ETF shares not the bitcoin spot markets.. when share allotment(baskets) fill the ETF custodians then would buy lumps of bitcoin privately on OTC(darkpool) markets not the public spot markets.

the only time that there will be a significant spot market push is when one ETF gets granted permission to operate. because all other proposed filings will see the opportunity to clone the accepted filing word for word for speedy acceptance. and so they would all then rush to buy many baskets(allotments) of bitcoin on the OTC markets at the same time which will indirectly cause some pressure on the supply of spot markets which rush to move coin to dark pool markets to fill the otc demands

They have the potential to tame Bitcoin by making it more accessible to institutional investors and reducing volatility. However, it's important to note that Bitcoin ETFs are still relatively new, and their long-term impact on the Bitcoin market is unknown.

Overall, Bitcoin ETFs have the potential to be a positive development for the Bitcoin market, but investors should be aware of the risks involved before investing.

Also I think BlackRock bitcoin Etf will accept buy sec - reason to this they only had one rejection in past ???

There are both pros and cons for this.

One of the pros is that there will be more liquidity for bitcoin which is what it needs right now. Go and look on a M5 chart right now and look at all those spikes you are seeing, also look at all the BARTS on the hourly charts. This is happening because the liquidity is very poor for bitcoin at the moment. With an ETF being approved there will be more market making and more liquidity.

The cons as you mentioned is that is will end up being more centralized to the top 1% which is not what we wanted. Basically happen pretty much in ETH right now how they went the POS route. So i agree with him on those points.