Here is what I sent to all the email addresses above:

There are niche ETFs for almost everything now. You can invest in specific industries and sub-industries by way of ETFs, along with numerous currencies and commodities.

Why not push these ETF companies to create a bitcoin ETF? There's no technical reason they can't do it, and I know that I for one could invest a lot more money in bitcoin if I could use my Fidelity 401k (which lets me invest in ETFs).

So, I compiled a list of companies that might release a niche ETF for bitcoin, and the best way to contact them:

_______Name_______	_______Website_______	__________Email__________
Market Vectors:	Van Eck	info@vaneck.com
Global X:	GlobalX Funds	info@globalxfunds.com
PowerShares:	Invesco PowerShares	info@powershares.com
iShares, Barclays:	US Ishares	isharesetfs@blackrock.com
Guggenheim:	Guggenheim Funds	etfinfo@guggenheimfunds.com
First Trust:	FT Portfolios	feedback@ftportfolios.com
Index IQ:	Index IQ	Innovate@IndexIQ.com
Wisdom Tree:	Wisdom Tree	web form
iPath:	iPath ETN	ipathetn@blackrock.com
Currency Shares:	Currency Shares	web form
Factor Shares:	Factor Shares	info@factoradvisors.com
Proshares:	Proshares	info@proshares.com
ETF Securities:	ETF Securities	infony@etfsecurities.com

You can help; please take a moment to contact the companies above and let them know you would be interested in investing in a bitcoin ETF. If you get an interesting response from them by phone or by email, post it here! Also, post any other ETF companies that should be added to this list.

If one of them actually does it, the ease of investing in bitcoins will go WAY down, and the amount of money coming in to the bitcoin economy will go WAY up

I believe that derivatives based on bitcoin will draw more money into bitcoin than even if all the checking accounts and cash in the world moved into bitcoin. It can't be proven though until someone tries it

The M1 money supply a big deal. However, the world's money supply is dwarfed by all the speculation that goes on with derivatives, stocks, options, commodities, futures, etc. I want to attract THAT money into bitcoin, if only because there are a lot fewer people that need to be convinced (how many people have a checking account versus how many people have a brokerage account for trading futures, options, or forex).

This is one misconception I keep running into, and I'm not sure what makes people think that my proposal involves losing decentralization. Decentralization is key to the success of bitcoin, and to the success of anything built on top of bitcoin.

While I would like to see a "trusted entity" with a financial incentive to work on adding features to make the protocol extensions more valuable, perhaps I haven't emphasized enough that the trusted entity would NOT control the new features. They would still be open source and decentralized.

I think the question Brian is trying answer is "Why should my Grandma use coinbase over bitcoin directly?"

If he can provide real security and convenience, he'll be able to give Grandma something she'll never get from the bitcoin client installed on a PC. Sometimes we forget what a tiny percentage of the world's population are hackers and security experts.

How many times have you used the "chat" feature on a website and got to chat with the CEO?

That was a first for me. It was very fun, but probably won't ever happen again.

Brian is awesome, and seeing some VCs finally doing something with bitcoin is even more awesome.

Brian: Congratulations! And please let me know what you think of those links I sent

Bitcoin turned my $200 investment into $30000 (during the bubble) into $7000 (now).

I'm a software engineer, and I'm about to start a really awesome job after 10 years at a different company. However, a bitcoin-related job is my dream. They just don't exist yet (at least, not for a guy with 3 kids and a mortgage).

Gavin,

This problem (with out-dated bitcoin code running on alternative chains) is exactly why I have been advocating for so long to build new user currencies on top of bitcoin, much like HTTP is built on top of TCP/IP.

Over and over again we see that once a person truly grasps what bitcoin is and the magnitude of what it could be, they inevitably want to try their hand at making a "better bitcoin".

Rather than fight this instinct, I believe we should embrace it. Once we have tools which users can use to build their own alt-coins on top of bitcoin with no programming required (as I have written about extensively), we will see the explosion in adoption that has always seemed just around the corner.

Well, I doubt anybody would make the case that ALL that money is moving into bitcoin. It's more of an exercise in showing how much money is floating around out there, and how tiny the value of bitcoins are in comparison. How much of that money will actually move into bitcoin is an exercise for the reader!


There are some, to be sure. It's just that the ratio is noticeably different from other places.

Looks like the numbers have changed somewhat, but still a pretty well-educated crowd. Also, with reputation mattering so much here, people are a lot nicer to each other.

It would be amusing to see the same education poll taken of bitcoin redditors

That's awesome! What is your source for that number? Did somebody do a poll?

People are so much nicer and more intelligent here than on Reddit. I'm not sure if its because there are less 12-year-olds here, or just that people on this forum have already done lots of thinking on these topics.

It seems like reddit reaches a very wide audience, and this forum reaches a very smart audience.

Not sure if I inspired this thread, but there's this of course:

http://bitcoinmedia.com/using-memes-to-explain-bitcoin/

Here are a couple highlights:

Lots of people are discussing this on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/vncz4/infographic_why_the_sky_is_the_limit_on_bitcoin/

The only way bitcoins will drop to $3 is if MtGox dies in a spectacular fashion. Even selling bitcoins when they were $30 was humorously short-sighted (although quite profitable if you were smart enough to buy them back at the bottom).

Here's my thread about my infographic regarding why I think the sky is the limit on bitcoin prices:

I love trying to figure out how much capital could eventually move into bitcoin. Here's an infographic I made to try to describe the potential:



The infographic is part of a larger presentation on the potential of bitcoin which I made.

Heh. That's on my list too:



(From my Using Memes to Explain Bitcoin)

You've hit the nail on the head.

I'm figuring that a lot of people would like to put some restrictions on their savings account so that if some hacker DOES get access to it, it's not game over right then.

You wouldn't be able to spend money straight out of your savings account to a merchant. You would have to transfer it to your checking account, and you would have to wait until the waiting period was over before you could spend it. This is a feature that could be added to bitcoin if a lot of people wanted it, so it isn't the central thrust of the paper.

The main thing I want is to allow the creation of new currencies with new rules, no programming required, all running on top of the bitcoin protocol. I'm convinced that the ability to create coins that track the value of a ticker is going to be a really big deal.

I asked myself: what is the lowest form of communication on the internet? I need something that could connect with people, no matter how low their intelligence. I figure I'm covering the highest band of intelligence with the whitepaper, and the lowest level of intelligence with the memes. Some smart people like memes, and some dumb people will try to read the paper, so I'm figuring I've got a pretty broad cross-section.

If the unintelligent conventions of the meme world annoy you, you are probably not in the low intelligence category