I know I'm going to have to start looking over my shoulder after saying this on SN but I guess that's what the 2nd amendment is for (and also Darth is away for a while):

A bitcoin ETF is probably a good thing. As you say, an ETF is just another custodian. There is counter-party risk to be sure but I do think that the SEC is a fairly efficient regulator, and bitcoin by its nature is much easier to audit. Also, if BlackRock or another ETF issuer were to engage in some fractional-reserve fuckery, I'm pretty sure that's a market inefficiency just waiting to be exploited by some hedge fund.

Who knows, maybe some people will start with an ETF and then move on to self-custody as they learn more.

In addition to all of the legitimate use-cases for bitcoin, it happens to be an excellent portfolio diversifier (for now). I have a few percent of my retirement account in a bitcoin futures ETF, specifically because of its volatility. I don't care if it's a fiat game or whatever - I still live in a fiat world and I need to pay fiat for most things.

As for the U.S. government sitting back and watching bitcoin destroy the dollar (@siggy47) - maybe they understand it's inevitable and are trying to navigate it in the best way possible. At the very least, an ETF ensures they make some money from capital gains tax. And who knows, maybe Satoshi Nakamoto was a CIA team that realized that the best way to propel America forward was to gradually switch to a harder currency while re-paying our debts to our geopolitical competitors in rapidly-depreciating fiat.