yep, the majority of people who brought into the ETFs are only getting paper Bitcoin and waiting to sell one day for fiat gains, which completely misses out on the whole point of Bitcoin.

I would say the ETFs thing are quite "smart", Bitcoin was meant to build its own ecosystem and separate from USD, but now they package Bitcoin as an investment, which is priced in USD, so at the end of the day, whoever prints the USD is still the ruler.

well said.

Amen. Completely agree on each of your succinct points. The ONLY silver lining for the Bitcoin Spot ETF that I see, is that some people will now dig deeper. As part of their due diligence or simple curiosity, and some will inevitably get orange-pilled in the process. I expect to hear stories along the lines of, "I invested into the Spot Bitcoin ETF, and the more I read about Bitcoin, the more intrigued I became. Ultimately, I cashed out of the ETF, bought the equivalent in Bitcoin on an exchange, immediately moved that to self-custody, and set up a node for full sovereignty. And you should follow my example."

Bitcoin adoption was never going to all happen on chain that's a dream, even with the protocols we have and possible future ones it's just never going to scale. Each option has a trade-off, individuals who value what self custody bring will use this method, while those that just value the price appreciation in fiat would be interested in an ETF

The ETF caters to a certain market, people who are already wealthy, they just want some allocation to it, they've already got other assets to bring them wealth, and they've got enough wealth, to think they will be protected

While I am not a fan of the ETF and wouldn't use it because I am not the intended market we have to accept people are going to trade IOUs thats the norm. As this gets bigger businesses are going to want Bitcoin, countries are going to want Bitcoin and these people are focused on other things and will happily outsource self custody

If they get rekt for their decision, thats on them

This is awesome thanks for sharing. As they say it you can’t beat ‘em, buy them. They aren’t buying my keys or my cheese. I’m a DCA to cold storage everyday type of guy!

I agree completely with the points made in this short article, greed is what still moves most "Bitcoiners" from the beginning I was not in favor of any Bitcoin ETF since that will give the government and institutions more power over Bitcoin.

I never thought of it this way. Thanks for shining the light on this.

this is the problem

in general people are so uninformed/misinformed about almost every important subject , and it won't change soon, unfortunately

I totally agree with you. I especially like these statements: Your interest in Bitcoin lies in taking power over the fruit of your labor and your life. Bitcoin aims to separate Money and the State.

I felt compelled to write an article in light of some of the things that have been hearing and seeing in the bitcoin space the past few weeks leading up to the approval of the ETFs, together with donations that have been pledged from these financial entities.

I completely agree with your vision, and in my personal opinion all this ETF stuff is a circus to manipulate the sleeping, the solution is and always will be to be your own custodian.

Number go up

Funny how keen people are to signal their disapproval of Bitcoin ETFs which are private and audited financial products provided by multiple institutions (okay fine yes there are only 3 custodians across them). Yes, not Bitcoin, still technically confiscateable but 100x better than holding a UST ETF or even $ in a bank account, and probably a gateway to people learning more (I wouldn't have discovered Bitcoin and become self sovereign later on had it not been for the services of an exchange which I used for way too long as my storage).

But, many of the same people are pushing for and celebrating governments holding Bitcoin in their treasuries and buying it with tax payer money.

I'll take individuals and businesses getting Bitcoin price exposure via private audited financial products rather than politicians rugging tax payers any day of the week.