The long-awaited launch of bitcoin spot ETFs in the US this 12 months helped engender a wave of optimism that the worth of the well-known cryptocurrency would rapidly respect. The logic was easy: With a straightforward, low-cost avenue now accessible for normal buyers to buy bitcoin, the supply-demand curve would shift and the worth of every bitcoin would rise.
However the response has been considerably combined. Whereas the worth of bitcoin has almost doubled prior to now 12 months to round $43,000 immediately, it has largely traded sideways in current weeks. Was the hype and ensuing response one other instance of the outdated Wall Avenue maxim, “Buy the rumor, sell the news”?
To be sincere, we’re checking the flows into and out of spot bitcoin ETFs extra often than we need to admit, however we nonetheless needed to be taught extra. So, we requested TechCrunch readers in the event that they meant to purchase bitcoin by way of one of many new spot ETFs, whether or not they owned bitcoin elsewhere, and what impression they anticipated these new investing autos to have on its worth and on crypto.
A number of dozen replies from founders and operators later, we discovered some attention-grabbing developments. A couple of quarter of respondents to our little, unscientific survey reported that they don’t intend to purchase bitcoin by way of an ETF, and already personal bitcoin elsewhere. The place are people holding their cash? In all places, it seems: Self-custody, Coinbase, KuCoin, all kinds of areas. Relatively impressively, Dara Khan, the pinnacle of selling at First rate DAO’s bitcoin, stated her pockets ended up on the “bottom of the ocean, lost it in a boating accident :(.”