Bitcoin ETFs - Good or Bad?

[Rayser]

I think ETFs are inevitable. If the SEC doesn't approve it this year, then as bitcoin becomes more popular they will find a way to regulate it. Maybe you don't expect ETF but I believe you also expect that bitcoin will become popular worldwide. And one thing you need to know is that for bitcoin to become popular in the world, it will be impossible to avoid the intervention of governments, legal agencies...Without their permission, I believe that bitcoin becoming popular in the world would never have happened. Our world is a centralized world controlled by the government, we cannot expect bitcoin to change the entire centralization of the world.

Man, Satoshi Nakamoto himself created the bitcoin to avoid being regulated by the government. He is an anarchist and a free market advocate.

You should read his posts and e-mails.

And we should expect Bitcoin to change the entire centralization of the world created by the big government.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

Like the first commenter said, what ever has an advantage sure has a disadvantage and vice visa, and coming to whether bitcoin ETF is good or not, sure thing, there are a lot of disadvantages as already listed by the op, but have we also looked at the advantages? One of it being that bitcoin is now legal in the USA, and US citizens can now invest in bitcoin through the ETF.

Personally, I feel that without bitcoin ETF being approved, bitcoin may struggle to gain adoption as we all want, and this is because, lots of countries may continue to place ban on bitcoin prohibiting citizens of that from buying or transacting in bitcoin, but right now the ETF have been approved by the US security and exchange commission, the whole wide world should now see and believe that bitcoin is legal and not a scam as many think or thought.

I think ETFs are inevitable. If the SEC doesn't approve it this year, then as bitcoin becomes more popular they will find a way to regulate it. Maybe you don't expect ETF but I believe you also expect that bitcoin will become popular worldwide. And one thing you need to know is that for bitcoin to become popular in the world, it will be impossible to avoid the intervention of governments, legal agencies...Without their permission, I believe that bitcoin becoming popular in the world would never have happened. Our world is a centralized world controlled by the government, we cannot expect bitcoin to change the entire centralization of the world.

Man, Satoshi Nakamoto himself created the bitcoin to avoid being regulated by the government. He is an anarchist and a free market advocate.

You should read his posts and e-mails.

And we should expect Bitcoin to change the entire centralization of the world created by the big government.

You and I know that the system is so designed in such a manner that nothing survives without approval from the big government.

[Moeda]

1. Do you want large institutional financial organisations buying large amounts of bitcoins and then locking it up in centralized trading platforms?

From what you have described, of course this is not a good thing to do. If there are some parties who control large amounts of Bitcoin, of course this will have a bad impact later. I think let Bitcoin run its course. There are no NFTs, and no control over Bitcoin.
Personally, I hope the spirit of Bitcoin is as it was developed before. This Bitcoin value or price increases slowly, not because it is forced.
Maybe many people have experience here, and realize what happens if a coin increases in price because it is forced. Today the price soars high, the next day it will be criticized.

[legiteum]

Good: people will be able to buy "Bitcoin" (scare quotes intentional) as easily as they buy any other security with their brokerage account.

Good: Bitcoin cements its place as a pure meme investment attached to nothing tangible whatsoever.

Good: This very well may increase the price of "Bitcoin".

Bad: This event underscores what many of us have known for a long time, which is that Bitcoin will never be a real mainstream currency and doesn't need to be. The original thesis of Satoshi N. has now been thoroughly discredited, as the blockchain architecture has proven itself impossible to scale to even a ten-thousandth of the volume necessary to service the world's current transactions. Almost no holders of Bitcoin keep their own private keys, which means they are kept in some institution, which is kept in some centralized database somewhere, making a mockery of the original vision of Bitcoin.

Bad: "Bitcoin", to almost all of it's investors, is just the word, "Bitcoin" and nothing else, and the ETF will just increase that.

Good/Bad: Bitcoin invented a new kind of pyramid investment, and made this kind of investing more efficient and pure than it's ever been. (Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on your own views of these kinds of investments).

[darkangel11]

Bad: This event underscores what many of us have known for a long time, which is that Bitcoin will never be a real mainstream currency and doesn't need to be.

The original thesis of Satoshi N. has now been thoroughly discredited, as the blockchain architecture has proven itself impossible to scale to even a ten-thousandth of the volume necessary to service the world's current transactions. Almost no holders of Bitcoin keep their own private keys, which means they are kept in some institution, which is kept in some centralized database somewhere, making a mockery of the original vision of Bitcoin.

How do you see it as a global currency if it's incapable of managing millions of transactions every hour? It's not built to do so without second layer solutions, so maybe its role is not to be a currency but a store of value? You say it yourself that it's impossible for it to serve the whole world in its current state, so I don't see this as a bad thing. You can't expect a pig to fly, so it's not a bad thing that it doesn't.
To me ETFs are a good thing. They advertise bitcoin, they won against the SEC, which was attacking bitcoin companies, they legitimized bitcoin in the mainstream media, showed that it's much more than a tool to avoid taxes and buy drugs. Have you noticed that the smear campaign against bitcoin that was trying to make people think that it's the cause of global warming has almost disappeared? Nobody is talking about it now that the biggest asset managers in the world are investing in it. IMO this was a big play from the beginning. Bitcoin was supposed to look bad in the bear market so they could buy it cheap and now that they're in, they need it to look good, so the attacks were toned down.

[umbara ardian]

While it's true that our world is currently dominated by centralized structures, Bitcoin's emergence represents a significant shift. It demonstrates the potential for decentralized technologies to disrupt existing paradigms and offer alternative models for finance and governance. While Bitcoin might not completely dismantle centralized systems, it can potentially act as a catalyst for innovation and inspire the development of more inclusive and transparent financial systems in the future.

In conclusion, the relationship between Bitcoin ETFs, regulation, and global popularity is complex and multifaceted. While regulatory hurdles might seem daunting, I believe the growing demand for Bitcoin and the potential for positive disruption will eventually lead to a pragmatic approach to its integration within existing frameworks.

[legiteum]

Bad: This event underscores what many of us have known for a long time, which is that Bitcoin will never be a real mainstream currency and doesn't need to be.

The original thesis of Satoshi N. has now been thoroughly discredited, as the blockchain architecture has proven itself impossible to scale to even a ten-thousandth of the volume necessary to service the world's current transactions. Almost no holders of Bitcoin keep their own private keys, which means they are kept in some institution, which is kept in some centralized database somewhere, making a mockery of the original vision of Bitcoin.

How do you see it as a global currency if it's incapable of managing millions of transactions every hour? It's not built to do so without second layer solutions, so maybe its role is not to be a currency but a store of value? You say it yourself that it's impossible for it to serve the whole world in its current state, so I don't see this as a bad thing. You can't expect a pig to fly, so it's not a bad thing that it doesn't.

I don't see Bitcoin as a global currency. And I agree, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Lots of technologies start off as one thing and evolve into something completely different.

Bubble wrap was originally created as a wallpaper, for instance:

https://www.businessinsider.com/successful-products-that-were-originally-intended-for-a-completely-different-purpose-2016-3

[legiteum]

While it's true that our world is currently dominated by centralized structures, Bitcoin's emergence represents a significant shift. It demonstrates the potential for decentralized technologies to disrupt existing paradigms and offer alternative models for finance and governance. While Bitcoin might not completely dismantle centralized systems, it can potentially act as a catalyst for innovation and inspire the development of more inclusive and transparent financial systems in the future.

In conclusion, the relationship between Bitcoin ETFs, regulation, and global popularity is complex and multifaceted. While regulatory hurdles might seem daunting, I believe the growing demand for Bitcoin and the potential for positive disruption will eventually lead to a pragmatic approach to its integration within existing frameworks.

But if anything, the ETF demonstrates that the vision of a decentralized technology is a complete failure as a mainstream alternative to current centralized money systems: people don't use Bitcoin that way and they never will.

The ETF shows that nobody really cares about decentralization: they just want a meme to invest in that will go up in value.

(All of the websites, institutions, centralized wallet apps and basically everything that stores private keys in a centralized database does the same thing: shows that consumers don't want "decentralized" anything).

[Rayser]

You and I know that the system is so designed in such a manner that nothing survives without approval from the big government.

You have much faint in the system.

Remember they couldn't stop torrents and piracy.

[Rayser]

Almost no holders of Bitcoin keep their own private keys

How do you know that?

[tyz]

2. Do you want Bitcoin to be a commodity or a currency? ETFs will destroy the goal of Bitcoin becoming a currency.

I'm going to pick out this sentence in particular. Bitcoin used to be a hope for me as an alternative currency. But today I see Bitcoin more as a commodity (digital gold) and no longer as a currency. Instead, the transaction costs are much higher, which is inefficient for any payment process, especially for small commercial amounts. And if you look at the development of the last few years, there is little hope that there will be further developments that will significantly reduce transaction costs. I would rather see coins like Litecoin or Doge as a currency because they are more practical to use.

[Benedictare]

   A Bitcoin ETFs has to do with investing fund that tracks the activity used to identify the basic assets, which could be stocks precious metals like gold or even Bitcoin, invsectors happens to know the value of basic assets without owning it directly.

   The Bitcoin ETF's  exchange traded products plan and make decisions to track Bitcoin price, minus the fees and cost of trading.
Investing in Bitcoin ETF could be better for traditional investors because of its method of investing in digital currency.
          Advantages of ETF, its simple,diversify and security while the Dis-addvantages are
  Fees -:investing is more expensive than buying crypto directly .
  Lack of ownership -:when you  Invest in  crypto ETF ,that's you do not own the crypto directly.
  No trading steadily at all times but at only during normal market time, that is trading is limited which is not good.  

[Kakmakr]

2. Do you want Bitcoin to be a commodity or a currency? ETFs will destroy the goal of Bitcoin becoming a currency.

I'm going to pick out this sentence in particular. Bitcoin used to be a hope for me as an alternative currency. But today I see Bitcoin more as a commodity (digital gold) and no longer as a currency. Instead, the transaction costs are much higher, which is inefficient for any payment process, especially for small commercial amounts. And if you look at the development of the last few years, there is little hope that there will be further developments that will significantly reduce transaction costs. I would rather see coins like Litecoin or Doge as a currency because they are more practical to use.

I think Bitcoin are doing very well under the circimstances. Let's not forget that none of the other Alt coins has come under the same kind of pressure than what Bitcoin is experiencing.... so they look good, with a lot less transactions.

The congestion is caused by things that are not supposed to be run, like Ordinals ...so do this on any other Alt coin with the same transaction load as Bitcoin and they will suffer the same problems.

We had this problem before and developers brought out SegWit and also the Lightning Network... so Bitcoin are evolving.

[YUriy1991]

  A Bitcoin ETFs has to do with investing fund that tracks the activity used to identify the basic assets, which could be stocks precious metals like gold or even Bitcoin, invsectors happens to know the value of basic assets without owning it directly.

It is always advisable to check prices on public exchanges when one is bidding on a commodity through a platform because as each Bitcoin exchange has different buying and selling rates.

  The Bitcoin ETF's  exchange traded products plan and make decisions to track Bitcoin price, minus the fees and cost of trading.
Investing in Bitcoin ETF could be better for traditional investors because of its method of investing in digital currency.

And my assumption is that generally traders in volatile markets always assume that where there is volatility there is money.

[Cryptomultiplier]

So, the much anticipated (under speculators) Bitcoin ETFs have recently been approved by the SEC. Most speculators bought into the hype, expecting a massive increase in the Bitcoin price.

The question you have to ask yourself is this :

1. Do you want large institutional financial organisations buying large amounts of bitcoins and then locking it up in centralized trading platforms?

2. Do you want Bitcoin to be a commodity or a currency? ETFs will destroy the goal of Bitcoin becoming a currency.

3. ETFs take direct investment capital into personal ownership of Bitcoin away and it pulls that capital into centralized trading platforms. (Those coins are owned by the trading platform, because they control the private keys)

4. Fiat whales get control over bitcoins and can be used to manipulate the Bitcoin price. (They control the traditional Fiat investment options, so they will gradually increase their ownership of bitcoins to control that too)

5. ETFs destroy pseudo anonymity, because it is highly regulated with strict KYC requirements implemented to identify every trader on their platform.

6. Bitcoin's future success rely on actual coins being transfered on the Blockchain, because it generates miners fees to reward the miners. What happens when the Block reward falls away and not enough transaction happen, because bitcoins are locked up in ETFs.

I hope people are not too blinded by greed to see the dangers of Bitcoin ETFs and the centralization of the tokens in Fiat controlled trading platforms.

Let's discuss..

Do you still think Bitcoin ETFs are the Knight on the white horse?

This is some fears as rightly stated, that has been on many minds about the ETFs being approved. Just like number 5 & 6 caught my attention most, I have always known that the ETFs were to put more control over Bitcoin owners. This is how they get taxed. This is how government or agencies could be able to track down any transactions for either payments or by money launderers or for sponsorship of  criminal activities.
This sure takes away anonymity, skews Bitcoin's idea to make it look like a desirable designer asset that may have a future triple value, make the fiat more preferred choice for expenditures and payments and transactions, thereby making Bitcoin more of an asset to own rather than a currency to be spent.

It is still some days in and we can't properly say that this is what will be the final reality of why the Bitcoin ETFs was approved.
After some years perhaps, we can get to revisit this topic in this thread and then we can clearly say if the Bitcoin ETF already approved and in play, was a good idea or a very bad one.

[Smack That Ace]

2. Do you want Bitcoin to be a commodity or a currency? ETFs will destroy the goal of Bitcoin becoming a currency.

I'm going to pick out this sentence in particular. Bitcoin used to be a hope for me as an alternative currency. But today I see Bitcoin more as a commodity (digital gold) and no longer as a currency. Instead, the transaction costs are much higher, which is inefficient for any payment process, especially for small commercial amounts. And if you look at the development of the last few years, there is little hope that there will be further developments that will significantly reduce transaction costs. I would rather see coins like Litecoin or Doge as a currency because they are more practical to use.

I think Bitcoin are doing very well under the circimstances. Let's not forget that none of the other Alt coins has come under the same kind of pressure than what Bitcoin is experiencing.... so they look good, with a lot less transactions.

The congestion is caused by things that are not supposed to be run, like Ordinals ...so do this on any other Alt coin with the same transaction load as Bitcoin and they will suffer the same problems.

We had this problem before and developers brought out SegWit and also the Lightning Network... so Bitcoin are evolving.

My question is that even if bitcoin's transaction fees are resolved but given its volatility, is it suitable to be a currency? Is there any currency that will increase or decrease 10% or 20% in value in a day, even an hour? That would cause a lot of problems for people using it for payments.
In my opinion, a volatile asset is more suitable for investment than being a currency, and moreover, how many people are willing to use it as currency? What I see is that people were only focused on the returns that bitcoin provided before we had ETFs. Therefore, I think it is not the ETF's fault that bitcoin cannot become a currency, but it is we who turn bitcoin into an investment, a commodity.

[legiteum]

My question is that even if bitcoin's transaction fees are resolved but given its volatility, is it suitable to be a currency? Is there any currency that will increase or decrease 10% or 20% in value in a day, even an hour? That would cause a lot of problems for people using it for payments.
In my opinion, a volatile asset is more suitable for investment than being a currency, and moreover, how many people are willing to use it as currency? What I see is that people were only focused on the returns that bitcoin provided before we had ETFs. Therefore, I think it is not the ETF's fault that bitcoin cannot become a currency, but it is we who turn bitcoin into an investment, a commodity.

You could potentially use a volatile currency if you only held small amounts of it at a time.

Some people who live in countries where currency there is very volatile (although not anywhere near as volatile as Bitcoin) will keep their wealth in an offshore account, and transfer only the money they need in their sovereign currency that day or even minutes before a purchase. And if you have a credit card that draws from an investment account, your wealth can be stored in whatever instrument and everything will be handled for you behind the scenes vis a vie the exchange rates.

And with credit cards and the Internet, one can imagine a the "UI" for your money always being displayed in some measure of wealth you can understand, e.g. US dollars for instance (and yes, this is exactly what we're doing at Haypenny with the "USDE" mechanism).

Most people aren't able to abstract a difference between their payment mechanism, their wealth store, and their measurement mechanism ("how much does it really cost me"), but this is exactly what you need to do in order to understand today's globalized world of finance.

And in this world, Bitcoin and cryptos are speculation instruments, not payment mechanisms. Currency that can viably be used for payment e.g. US dollars or (eventually) Haypenny currencies are all both investments and payment mechanisms. In other words, if you hold Euros, you are essentially investing in Euros, and you can also broadly make payments in directly Euros, etc.

So in summary, there are three different things an instrument can give you:

1. A means of speculation, e.g. an investment you surmise will go up in value.

2. A means of transacting with others.

3. A means of understanding the value, in your own terms, of a given transactions (e.g. converting it to USD or whatever your "native" currency is that your own brain is used to).

Bitcoin and cryptos do #1 only, practically speaking.

Haypenny does #1 and #2 (and it's UI allows you to do #3 in USD specifically).

Traditional currencies do all three.

[Franctoshi]

<Snip>

I was about to say something similar. Remember the day before the official ETF approval, when SEC's twitter profile posted that bitcoin ETFs were official approved? The price shot up from around 44k to almost 48k, only to fall down further after they deleted the tweet and claimed it was a hack. The day after, when it was finally official, the market didn't react in a similar fashion. And now, it's moving downwards, contrary to everyone's expectations. But it's not surprising because many people were saying that a big correction is around the corner. Maybe the last one before the halving hype.

I have the same thought as you, buy the rumor and sell the news kind of thing, I believe that the market is preparing its way for the halving event before starting to shoot up, my personal thought on before the ETF approval is that I was thinking how the institution would want to buy Bitcoin @then $44k-$48k that the price shot to, So I reasoned that they will try to short the market to get Bitcoin in a more cheaper price than that and which is what we've seen that the market is doing since after the announcement.

[Pmalek]

I have the same thought as you, buy the rumor and sell the news kind of thing, I believe that the market is preparing its way for the halving event before starting to shoot up, my personal thought on before the ETF approval is that I was thinking how the institution would want to buy Bitcoin @then $44k-$48k that the price shot to, So I reasoned that they will try to short the market to get Bitcoin in a more cheaper price than that and which is what we've seen that the market is doing since after the announcement.

The information I read from a respected market analyst who doesn't always follow the general predictions and people who scream lambo and to the moon all day, is that Bitcoin wouldn't go above $48k. He was partially right with that. I think the high was around $48.6k - 48.7k. He then said that the market is ripe for a correction down to the $30-35k area. This was a long time before the price started falling. Let's see if he was right.

[pawel7777]

The information I read from a respected market analyst who doesn't always follow the general predictions and people who scream lambo and to the moon all day, is that Bitcoin wouldn't go above $48k. He was partially right with that. I think the high was around $48.6k - 48.7k. He then said that the market is ripe for a correction down to the $30-35k area. This was a long time before the price started falling. Let's see if he was right.

I think that was actually a dominating opinion. Even those who were predicting massive gains after the ETF approval were not expecting that to happen immediately after. A lot of people, especially those involved in trading, were saying that a dip/correction is likely to happen (even to $30k levels) before we start the proper new cycle pump.
But, as always, a big part of the bitcoin community have set their hopes way too high and now they're feeling disappointed. Patience is the key.