But let's be clear. Blackrock is not buying! They are buying ON BEHALF of their ETF customers.
And that's the problem right there! It is still Blackrock buying bitcoin not the customers. That means you can't go to Blackrock and demand they give you the bitcoins they bought on your behalf. And at some point they may not even buy any bitcoins with your money and yet take your money all the same...
huh? That's not the case. Yeah you don't get the bitcoins, but you get the cash, when you sell the shares in the ETF. That's how ETFs work. Everyone buying a Bitcoin ETF knows thats how it works and they are choosing to do that. Nothing wrong with that. ETF customer buys shares of ETF and the ETF issuer buys that amount of bitcoin on their behalf, ETF customer sells shares of ETF and ETF issuer sells that amount of bitcoin on their behalf. Very straightforward. There's no problem with it.
My point was that people at least write in posts on the internet about these ETFs as though they think its the actual investment firms buying up all this Bitcoin for themselves (which in itself would also be perfectly okay because ANYONE can own Bitcoin, remember bitcoin is all about being open, no gate keepers, nobody deciding who can own what, etc) but of course its not, its the investors who are buying the ETFs. The ETF issuing investment firms are just the middleman, they have zero say in who buys and how much and who sells and how much. Blackrock doesn't matter at all, because it's not their money. All they get is a tiny cut for doing their middleman service.