I agree, because I can't see how they "clean" it up, unless ETFs can only purchase newly mined bitcoin with virgin transaction history which will be a nightmare to acquire based on capital flows and it only gets murky with time

I just think that self-custody is the killer app and people need to learn to hold their own bitcoin that's why I am not set on an ETF, just a centralised future market dumping mechanism that governments can co-opt.

I say disperse the coins

TheBTCManual

“As an ETF would acquire bitcoin from these established bitcoin native capital markets, ETFs could provide liquidity for wash trading, and money laundering or be the exit liquidity for scams or sanctioned countries or entities.”

This is true I think this is the main reason a spot will never be approved. I often think is this a blessing in disguise to prevent criminals getting access to capital. Or are we punishing the masses for a few bad apples. Age old question 