I am not as apprised how every institution handles crypto, although I know PayPal allows you to buy crypto, and are a mainstream financial player.
I have never used it, but I know that it does not work like exchanges do. You cannot withdraw it to your wallet, and I don't think PayPal has proof of reserves, so I don't know even if these coins exist in the first place and aren't some sort of IOU.
is there some way we can tell how much has been moved to the ETF?
Sorry, I have no damn clue.
Again, I agree with today's brokerages (as far as I know, and with the above caveat about PayPal), but the ETF changes this conversation entirely.
Indeed. And that's because it introduces some regulatory convenience. Let's see how this goes. Still, though. Someone has to safeguard bitcoin, which is not really different from a crypto exchange. The only difference is that there is more regulatory ground to base it. If an anonymous hacker compromises the infrastructure, I wonder what will happen to investors' money.
And as a side note, while you are probably right about the state of the pure crypto brokers right now, I would have to think, with tens of billions of dollar in prize money waiting for them, that some companies with trusted brand names will step up and solve the problem
I don't think that the solution is "reputation". The problem comes from the fact that knowledge of a private key can alter ownership, which is fundamentally different than the traditional model where there are lots of documents and procedures involved to change the ownership of a car, house etc. Attempting to falsely alter the ownership of a property can also result in imprisonment, which discourages thieves further.
However, even if regulations become more strict, and crypto firms must be held accountant of financial losses, and / or maybe even if the state compensates them, the problem still remains. Ownership changes with the knowledge of a number, anonymously, with no disincentive for imprisonment.