Bitcoin EFTs are bad for Bitcoin as a decentralized digital currency.

[spectre71]

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.

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[Julien_Olynpic]

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.

[DooMAD]

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.

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.

[legiteum]

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.

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...

[The Cryptovator]

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.

[aylabadia05]

Remember "Not your keys, not your coins"?  Bitcoin was intended as a decentralized digital currency.

Futures ETFs and spot ETFs are as far from Bitcoin's intended purpose as you can get and they serve to make banks more money while giving them more control.

Does anyone else see what is happening here?  The silence is deafening!

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.

[franky1]

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.

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.

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

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

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)
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

[legiteum]

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!

[Antotena]

Remember "Not your keys, not your coins"?  Bitcoin was intended as a decentralized digital currency.

Futures ETFs and spot ETFs are as far from Bitcoin's intended purpose as you can get and they serve to make banks more money while giving them more control.

Does anyone else see what is happening here?  The silence is deafening!

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.

[spectre71]

Remember "Not your keys, not your coins"?  Bitcoin was intended as a decentralized digital currency.

Futures ETFs and spot ETFs are as far from Bitcoin's intended purpose as you can get and they serve to make banks more money while giving them more control.

Does anyone else see what is happening here?  The silence is deafening!

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.

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.

 

[Ale88]

Remember "Not your keys, not your coins"?  Bitcoin was intended as a decentralized digital currency.

Futures ETFs and spot ETFs are as far from Bitcoin's intended purpose as you can get and they serve to make banks more money while giving them more control.

Does anyone else see what is happening here?  The silence is deafening!

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.