Quote from: ivomm on Today at 11:04:18 PM

Quote from: d_eddie on Today at 10:26:21 PM

Since when we saw the tail wagging the dog (derivatives dragging corn down), I've become wary. TPTB have an unlimited amount of shiat money to throw at any ETF. Then who audits the ETF? Who audits the auditors? Physical corn, on the other hand, has this self custody thing that is very very hard to dodge... Wink

The ETF thing in general is good, but there are multiple problems that may appear and instead of blessing to become an obstacle (at least temporary) in terms of the price increase. First, there are two types of ETF - cash settled and physically settled. The first type won't have any affect on the price. But the second will have an impact, because the BTC's will be bought from the spot exchanges in USA. I don't think some respected company like Fidelity or CBOE will risk faking the purchases of BTC's. If they don't have the asset, they will have to use customers money to pay the new customers. This will make them a ponzi, and as we all know the law in USA is severe in such cases. The most famous case is Maydoff's, who faked profits from the activity of the firms and used the new cash to pay the interest. I believe the court gave him 150 years in prison effective sentence. So, although possible, it is highly unlikely this will happen. But, SEC are cautious and want to be 100% sure that the custody is well established and working. May be this was one of the main reasons for the denials in 2017. But now the things are different - Bakkt, Grayscale, Paypal, G&S, Fidelity, M&S, etc. are respected financial giants who managed to secure licenced in USA custody with insurance in case of theft. Therefore I think the probability of creating fake volume with non existent bitcoins is practically 0.

However, there are other problems that may affect the price in a negative way. The first problem is how exactly the 650K BTC's held by Grayscale will be managed if the premium continues to be negative. Will they apply for an ETF and somehow transfer the BTC's in the ETF market? There is a chance that the things may go wrong for awhile and thus causing some panic in the spot market. The other big problem is that the high expectations may lead to another Dec. 2017 buble like increase that may end just as badly. People thought that the cash settled futures will have a positive impact on the price. Then the great dissapointment came. A similar thing happened when Bakkt started. So there may be some drawbacks after all. Hopefully they will not bring another 2-year bear winter. But once the ETF market becames fully operational, we can expect at least several trillions $ invested in BTC for a short time of 1-2 years perhaps. And the best scenario is everything to go smoothly with an extended multi year bull market. I think the odds for that are much greater because of the new big players, who don't seek a quick profit.

I don't claim to fully understand the implications of ETFs getting into Bitcoin. At first thought it seems to be a positive thing (mass adoption, recognition, etc.). But, something makes me feel a little wary about such big players entering this space. All those massively powerful entities will have the power to greatly influence the market, and we must assume that their motives will not necessarily be pro-Bitcoin. On the other hand, if Bitcoin is to have a future, it has to be able to withstand any threat and succeed in any challenge. So, I'm not too worried about it. I see all such cases as tests of Bitcoin's robustness. I just have a bittersweet taste in my mouth about this one...