Where are you getting that?

That's not true. Its an easy way but companies can buy bitcoin and hold it. Nothing has ever prevented that legally in the US. So accounting rules have changed that make it easier and the ETFs make it so that they don't have to learn how to do it. But they have been able to buy bitcoin for a while now. There are whole companies that have helped them learn to do so. Saylor even had a training course for companies to do it.

Even small businesses don't need to buy the ETFs. A small business that doesn't have any money in markets for example would have to go through the same process to open up a brokerage account that they would to open up a Strike account. It might be easier to do it with Strike. They buy bitcoin on Strike and can send it to self custody. They just need to do the accounting and track it all.

Writing this more for the others that might see this. If you have a small business you can legally buy bitcoin and hold it. You do not have to by paper bitcoin. That is false and its not easier either.