I think this scenario are very similar to the affect that the Halving has on the Bitcoin price. By the time when the actual Halving happens, most of the price increase has already been "priced in" ...because people knew that the event would happen. So, the ETF approval will have the same affect... where the perception will be that it will be approved and people will buy early to get cheaper coins, before the price increase.  Have the prices really already been priced in at the halving? I would argue now. Perhaps in the very short term you could consider that (e.g. 1-3 months?) but 9-12 months later it seems now. :-) And I agree that the impact of the ETF approval may be priced in, but the impact of the ETF investments over time probably hasn't. Who knows for sure though....ask me in 5 years. lol :-) |
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A click-baity headline fro the Economist.
And the paper cites work by a researcher named “Tatsuaki Okamoto”. Indeed, and poor journalism, why put the guy's name in "" like it's not his name or he doesn't exist, he has even given interviews on his patents and his views on Bitcoin. Besides, old story: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=235289.0somebody from the Economist just had a pressing deadline on delivering some article. But imagine this being true, some users around here might need some extra pills if they find out the thing that was supposed to overthrow the government is a tool leaked by the government to control the masses! And sheeple becomes a new kind of meme. What is more likely is that this rumor that it is to "control the masses" is being spread by "agencies" because they know that bitcoin is a tool that allows the masses to avoid the control by the governments, protect themselves, their assets and families, be pseudo-anonymous, and be secure from censorship of payments. Reverse psychology here. |
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Researchers at Fidelity Investments, one of the world’s largest asset managers, are doubling down on bitcoin, describing it as a “superior form of money” that gives it a value not replicated by other tokens.
In a white paper released last week, Chris Kuiper and Jack Neureuter wrote that bitcoin’s status as a “monetary good” and store of value puts it in a different investment category than other tokens, which they said exhibit venture-capital-like properties.
...
For investors interested in digital assets, it’s best to think of those newer networks more like speculative venture-capital investments, the Fidelity researchers said, while bitcoin can be thought of as a monetary instrument.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/fidelity-bitcoin-401k-accounts-5e359383It has taken them a while, but at least they seem to have understood the value bitcoin brings people. |
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"A Bitcoin exchange-traded fund seems all but sure to come on the market within the next few months. Be careful in chasing gains the market has likely already priced in. On Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission declined to appeal a recent loss in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In that case, a panel of judges unanimously concluded that the SEC erred in rejecting Grayscale Investments’ bid to convert the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (ticker: GBTC) into an exchange-traded fund. ... " https://www.barrons.com/articles/bitcoin-etf-grayscale-how-invest-5e6b7393I believe they are correct about the inevitability of a BTC ETF. However, "priced in"? Perhaps in the short term it is priced in, but in the long term that seems very doubtful. The question is: what is the absolute demand for bitcoin from people who don't want to open an account at an exchange or hold their own coins? Just in my experience with people, people are often lazy. If they can buy it at Schwab, Vanguard, Fidelity, Merrill, eTrade etc in their brokerage or IRA that makes it much easier and less intimidating. |
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I had to read through this thread twice thinking it must be a joke. But no, it isn't. I spent my working career in marketing and sales. Whoever submitted this as a "corporate idea" should no longer be a contender for any promotions, LOL!!
It is the opposite of cold storage, so why not just keep the keys in plain text in a gmail account? I'd trust google more than Ledger, of course that doesn't say much since I wouldn't trust either of them with anything like that. |
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The thing is.... do we want Institutional capital to enter Bitcoin and dominate the ownership of coins ...or do we want an more even distribution of coins to millions of people? The Institutional Fiat rich investors will turn into Bitcoins whales and they will use those coins to manipulate the price.... they will dump large amounts of coins, which will cause huge price fluctuations and this will create too much price volatility for retail and businesses to use it as a Currency. I vote for mass adoption of millions of individuals.... and not just a few institutions with the investment capital of a small group of super rich people. It will never be a working currency. the fee structures are wrong. the shrinking reward system will alway create upwards price pressures. The scrypt algo using LTC / Doge is far better to use for circulation currency. BTC would have need to slow blocks and make ½ ings every 8 years then have lightning network for smaller transactions. It has already failed as a universal payment system. it is still good for larger money moves Lightning helps with the circulating currency issue. Likewise, at some point an order of magnitude or two from now I believe that bitcoin will reach nearly fiat equilibrium except for of course the increase in fiat price due to fiat inflation and smaller increases in use cases. |
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Now burning methane gas to produce electricity, might not be the most environment friendly option, but it is released into the air in any way.. so why should we not use it?
Perhaps because of a little something called natures delicate balance? We should be trying to cut back on the production of methane if we want to keep living on a livable planet. I know that there are a few hard-core Waterworld fans who disagree with me on this, but trust me, it would be a better option. That being said, the acceleration of offsetting the delicate balance of nature is not really an argument. I understand that argument basically as a kind of a lemmings way out of an anxious situation: "We're all headed towards a doomed future anyway, might as well die now". It is easier said than done... and it will cost us to make huge sacrifices to the way we are living. Take cows for instances, they release massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere as a byproduct of the grass that they eat and we get Milk and Meat from them. Do we kill all the cows and remove Milk and Meat from our diet? We should find alternative solutions like this to harness that "FREE" energy to our advantage and to improve the quality of the air that we breathe. (Agriculture already use cow dung to generate energy from the methane released) "Free" energy such as fusion would go a long way to this. One "simple" way would be to change the albedo of the planet. Paint all rooftops white, and make roadways and parking lots white. That alone would change the direction of the planetary temperature and would be significantly less expensive and disruptive than other options. |
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Yeah, I read that article too and it really didn't have a lot of substance. There are catalysts, halving, potential ETFs, more usage cases etc. that weren't mentioned. The Fed is impacting it short term for traders and long term for investors due to perpetual inflation at various levels, long term hard money (backed by math) wins.
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I think this is great news for bitcoin both from a price perspective and from a long term use perspective. The long term goal in my thoughts has been to make bitcoin usable for many things, from transactions, to transferring real world items, to protecting oneself from the power-hungry people in the world, to providing censorship resistance to everyone in the world etc.
Speculators are all well and good and it isn't something one would want to end. They have helped launch bitcoin from less than a penny to wherever it is right now $25k-30k. The way to get to the usability standpoint is to reach higher adoption and ownership. Even if ETF owners are doing some speculation, this could easily take bitcoin on its next leg up and at some point, whether another order or two or three of magnitude, then one won't need to get out of bitcoin, one can transact in bitcoin without as much thought about price appreciation. Once more people stay in bitcoin, KYC etc won't be relevant.
In short, if an ETF is approved which does seem more likely now, that will bring a lot of new capital in which gets closer to the point above. :-)
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This is no surprise, because we all know that the US are now a police state, like any other first world nation. Things have changed a lot since 11 September (today's date) .... and it will never be the same again.
In all fairness, it's not just the US, you could say the same about literally any country in the World, maybe with few exceptions. Things will keep getting worse because of the masses being passive and docile and allowing everything without any resistance. If banks are already sharing information about their customers internationally, then doing the same for cryptos is just a matter of time. Governments will not allow any financial loopholes. You both hit the nail on the head. There was no need for a war, the authoritarians seized control under the pretext of safety after Sept 11. A solitary prison cell is safe but does anyone really want to be safe like that? The only escape hatch will be things like bitcoin and PMs where they can't control or censor people. If people didn't know it before, it became even clearer the when they shut off payment processing and speech for a billionaire president of the US with no pushback from 95% of the people. The so-called free press didn't care, the fascists, socialists, and communists in DC in fact loved it. At that point it should've been pretty clear to most people that without a huge change, everything will be lost. It doesn't seem like it made much of an impression on many though. In fact the far-left extremists cheered it - not surprisingly. |
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Hold on, how will this transformation of X (twitter) a social media platform move to become a PayPal kind of platform?? Aren't these two built for different purposes??
Btw, with bitcoin being pushed under the umbrella of regulation...is it possible to have Elon Musk cautioned for his market manipulation to save our markets as these wild swings he causes on the crypto market cause alot of fear and panic and few are ready for this.
I think the goal is to have one platform where you can do everything, including pay people if you wish. Instead of having to go to PayPal, Venmo, Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram etc, you would just go one place and do everything there. Kind of like using HTTP/S on the internet except it is private. |
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~snip~
Now burning methane gas to produce electricity, might not be the most environment friendly option, but it is released into the air in any way.. so why should we not use it?
Perhaps because we should not give additional arguments to those who use it to portray Bitcoin as one of the great threats to our environment, no matter how meaningless it is if we take into account the facts from all relevant research. Those who mine BTC of course do it for profit, but I believe that they should always strive to use clean and renewable energy sources, although even these energy sources are not something that does not leave an impact on the environment. The less oil, methane, coal and similar fuels associated with Bitcoin, the better for all of us in the long run. If the goal is environmentally friendly mining, everyone should be using nuclear. As far as this goes, it seems better to be using methane that would just be dumped into the atmosphere to offset some other power source than to just dump it. |
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Of course it did create a buying opportunity. The halving, potentially an ETF sometime in the next 5-7 years (hopefully sooner), rising socialism/fascism/communism and control around the world, censorship, not to mention other use cases, are all catalysts for increasing demand.
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It amazes me that places like Argentina don't have a huge presence in bitcoin. It isn't as if bitcoin's value as an inflation hedge is hidden.
Don't they though? A quick google search suggests Argentina has one of the highest crypto adoption rates, which would make sense considering they had some restrictions on foreign exchanges. They may have a one of the highest adoption rates, but I was thinking it would be a lot more. Both as a percentage of assets and numbers of people doing it. I can see that they'll buy hard goods with paychecks as soon as possible, but one would think the same for bitcoin. And I'm sure a lot of people do, but I just thought it would be higher. :-) Of course maybe a lot of people don't have enough free cash to do so which is certainly a possibility. |
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I'd also add, not just easier and cheaper, but in theory safer. They'll be taking the risk of properly securing the bitcoin and having insurance if they screw up, presumably. In some respects that's good because they should be following best practices in doing so, but they have to be sure they are really getting it perfect.
Good point, as it's a spot ETF not a futures ETF, it will require them to actually hold bitcoins. I believe they intend to use Coinbase as their custodian, so it's not like BlackRock would have to do any extra work themselves. Coinbase is already regulated and has been doing this for years, so all should work fine from the security side. I've no idea whether such ETF would require BlackRock to purchase any extra insurance (as far as I know ETFs are not FDIC insured) but they surely have plenty of experience in managing/mitigating financial risks. The problem with the futures ETF is that it really has essentially phantom bitcoins. Like the gold futures ETF not having to hold physical gold. It essentially is just a way to gamble on the direction of the price without having to "settle" them at the end which saps demand from "physical" bitcoin. You get nearly none of the benefits of bitcoin, only the risk of a price drop. Yes, you could get the benefit of a price increase, but that is all. Might as well gamble on the flip of a coin. |
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BlackRock are also quite diversified with their investment, but it is heavily exposed to some large tech stocks. So it makes sense that they will invest in one of the best financial breakthroughs in the last 20 years. Yes, Bitcoin investments are high risk, but if you have a diversified and balanced portfolio, then you can manage the risk. I think the SEC are stalling the decision to approve their application, because they want to see what happens in the next election. In this case, is not as much about BlackRock investing in Bitcoin, but more about them making it easier for others (especially institutional investors) to invest in it. So they'd be making profits from managing the ETF rather than from Bitcoin appreciating in value. So pretty similar to centralised exchanges, it's the number of users and activity that matters, not the asset's price. I'd also add, not just easier and cheaper, but in theory safer. They'll be taking the risk of properly securing the bitcoin and having insurance if they screw up, presumably. In some respects that's good because they should be following best practices in doing so, but they have to be sure they are really getting it perfect. |
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Lately majority of people find theirselves within the crypto space, but many of them do not really understand the actual reasons for adopting crypto currency other than to make profit, what are your own reasons for adopting cryptocurrency?
Everyone has their own reasons. :-) Mine: the coolness of the tech when I read about it a bit over 13 years ago, freedom and the ability to protect oneself and the products of one's life from authoritarians and statists the world over whether they are fascists, socialists, monarchists, communists or anything related. The privacy, pseudo-anonymity, uncensorability etc all are tools against those who believe they have the right to the products of your life merely because they want it and you have no right to your life. It is an evil philosophy, espoused by many over the millennia, including the US democrat southern, slave-owners and it is tried the world over today just using more flowery language. (Obviously, in 2023, profit has become a nice thing although in 2010 many people weren't as focused on it as now, they just liked the tech.) |
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Nope that is not happening without extreme buying which only happens during a supercycle where most media outlet is covering the skyrocketing price of cryptocurrencies, thus inciting people to buy more.
ETFs aren't going to bring it anywhere close to that level by themselves - that's what people thought would happen last time (institutions adoption bitcoin) but in reality it was only a couple of custodians creating these services for other people to use that (among other things) drove traders to make extreme purchases and make a short price spike last time around.
I disagree a little. :-) The halving will probably be a big deal as it has been other years. It isn't solely about demand, but supply too. As the supply of coins that are on the market decreases (people are buying to hold, not trade), let alone the decrease in new coins available (the halving), if demand remains constant let alone has any increase, the price increases. Prices are set at the margin so even an ETF that is only slightly successful will increase the price with less supply on the market and higher demand. |
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Yes, the “anonymous bureaucrats”!!! Yes, this is always the unfortunate case in all countries, even in the largest democracies. There are corrupt politicians or economists who work in secret and control everything under the surface.
Yes, this is one problem with the so-called administrative state. Lawmakers should make the laws. If they can't make them clear enough themselves then it should be a law. |
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"could" etc. Plenty of hedge words. They always build in wiggle room because they don't know. No one does. Just people who have been watching for a long time know that the trend has been up and with the halving coming if previous years have been any indication, more upside seems likely. It really just depends on whether enough people are paying attention and getting sick of inflation eating away the value of their fiat.
It amazes me that places like Argentina don't have a huge presence in bitcoin. It isn't as if bitcoin's value as an inflation hedge is hidden.
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