Excerpt
I address the critical question of whether Bitcoin spot ETFs are really backed by bitcoin. I also examine the role of major financial institutions such as BlackRock and Fidelity in the current adoption phase of Bitcoin – are they a curse or a blessing?
In addition, I share my perspective on the original purpose of Bitcoin as intended by its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, and discuss the risks associated with an ETF, such as the misuse of BTC like with gold certificates or a limitation of the principle of self-custody.
Transcript
What is a spot ETF?
Could you explain the spot ETF? Are they really backed by bitcoin?
We don’t know, you know? A spot ETF is issued by a company like BlackRock or Fidelity or whatever their names are and basically they are a black box.
I mean it might be that they have to make attestations how many bitcoin they really own and hold but in the end how would anyone know if they really hold that or not?
Are big institutions a curse or a blessing?
And this leads to the second part of this question which is: Are BlackRock, Fidelity and so on a curse or a blessing for the adoption at this time? Could they abuse bitcoin like gold certificates do sometimes?
And yeah, for me personally, they are more a curse than a blessing because I don’t think that we need spot ETFs to secure the blockchain, to secure Bitcoin. Bitcoin is working by itself, on its own already.
We don’t need ETFs to strengthen the network. It’s basically the opposite true because if too many bitcoin are held by these huge institutions they could try to influence the development and the developers maybe of Bitcoin and that’s why I’m not a fan of it.
Why ETFs go against Bitcoin’s principles
Because also of course they can abuse them like gold certificates as they are just paper bitcoin in your hands. You’re not self-custodying your bitcoin then and this is basically the complete opposite to what the idea of Satoshi Nakamoto was.
I’m pretty sure that Satoshi Nakamoto didn’t have the intention to build a tool for paper bitcoin because otherwise they would not have needed to invent Bitcoin at all and yeah that’s the reason why I’m not a great fan of these ETFs.
I’d much rather have individuals accumulating self-custodial bitcoin before the BlackRocks come into this space when Bitcoin actually is a tool against these huge corporations.
