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10 months ago
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Bitcoin ETF : They make the asset class “less of a scary concept” to mainstream audiences, BTC advocate Jameson Lopp said.
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As the first batch of BTC spot ETFs starts trading, crypto advocates grapple with its implications.
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While some view crypto’s linking up with traditional finance as a positive and inevitable part of going mainstream, others worry it spells bad news for the promise of decentralization.
It’s official. The U.S. securities watchdog on Wednesday made history by begrudgingly approving a batch of BTC spot exchange-traded funds (E.T.F), energizing markets that were for months trembling with anticipation.
These hard-won approvals are largely viewed as a leg-up for an industry hoping to rebuild its reputation after 2022’s spectacular market collapse fueled by Sam Bankman-Fried and others. But for long-time crypto advocates, considerations may go beyond market recovery.
Some fear that fraternizing with crypto’s original enemy – traditional finance (TradFi), Big Banks and Wall Street, which early fans of the BTC blockchain had in their sights – threatens to break its original promise of decentralizing financial services. Others contend that BTC , the cryptocurrency, was intended for the masses, and that some form of alignment with TradFi was unavoidable – with benefits to both parties.
“It was always an inevitable part of the process of going mainstream,” Jameson Lopp, software engineer and BTC advocate, said during an interview, speaking about crypto and TradFi colliding through the creation of BTC E.T.Fs. “Wall Street wants a cut of the action.”
However, these BTC ETFs will “accelerate the flywheel of adoption” and make the asset class “less of a scary concept” to mainstream audiences, he added.
Spot ETFs allow investors to take advantage of the popular cryptocurrency’s volatile price movement sans the hassle of having to learn about strange-sounding concepts like self-custody, blockchain and private keys.
Erik Voorhees, one of crypto’s earliest entrepreneurs, said on social media platform X that the “most important result” of BTC ETFs would be dissuading governments from treating the crypto harshly.
“When 50 million boomers own BTC passively, the political and economic damage from a ban will be significantly less palatable. It’s no longer just an asset for shadowy super coders,” Voorhees said. “And it’s absolutely a Trojan Horse about to be pulled through gates of Troy.”
English (US)