Sorry for clickbaity title, obviously there will only be 21M BTC.
But with more banks, institutions, and CEXs trying to custody the BTC and creating ETFs, options, and perhaps other derivatives in the future, how can we be sure there won't be an "infinite" supply of these synthetic "shares" of BTC?
Those shares are not bitcoins and
people should not buy such shares because it's not bitcoin, and they don't have private keys or mnemonic seeds.
If investors want bitcoin, they need to buy bitcoin, and avoid shares. They can trust capital management of Bitcoin Spot ETFs but trust sometimes will be punished by scammers.
Sorry for clickbaity title, obviously there will only be 21M BTC.
But with more banks, institutions, and CEXs trying to custody the BTC and creating ETFs, options, and perhaps other derivatives in the future, how can we be sure there won't be an "infinite" supply of these synthetic "shares" of BTC?
Those shares are not bitcoins and
people should not buy such shares because it's not bitcoin, and they don't have private keys or mnemonic seeds.
If investors want bitcoin, they need to buy bitcoin, and avoid shares. They can trust capital management of Bitcoin Spot ETFs but trust sometimes will be punished by scammers.
Nobody is able to change the Bitcoin protocol to have more than 21M bitcoin. It's possible but nobody actually want to have more than 21M bitcoins then price of each bitcoin drops considerably.
You can't tell people they shouldn't buy BTC ETFs because not everyone is interested in self custody. Not everyone is interested in self-custody because to some, that's the quickest way to lose their coins. Image telling a millionaire to start learning how to keep their coins safe though all his business life, he had had to depend on banks and other entities to secure his money. That's the essence of the ETF.
For the OP, there is no way anyone could be sure there are not more ETF Bitcoin floating around than the operators claim. Afterall, giants like Enron lied to their investors for decades. Banks and other operators sometimes cook their books to impress their shareholders.