Opinion: Why Are Big Financial Firms Going Against BTC?

Author: Ryan Gorman, CoinDesk; Compiled by: Deng Tong, Golden Finance

The launch of the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) and the previous Bitcoin futures ETF have been amazingly reported .

These funds help solve problems while giving the impression of being on the cutting edge of investing, when in fact They're a simple way to charge money while also making it harder for you and me to own Bitcoin (BTC). Meanwhile, Wall Street is pondering how to respond to the growing threat posed by decentralized finance (DeFi).

In fact, a research report released before the recent bull run revealed that nearly one-third (32%) of Americans have used a DeFi platform. In addition, a quarter of the population in China (26%) and India (25%) also use them. Considering the amount of growth in total value locked (TVL) and DeFi transaction volume since the start of the year, it wouldn’t be surprising if these numbers were higher.

A cynical money grab

Crypto industry veterans and others have long questioned spot Bitcoin The necessity or sensitivity of ETFs, or even the belief that this defeats the purpose of Satoshi Nakamoto (not Craig White) writing the Bitcoin white paper and creating the first cryptocurrency. That said, most people are ignoring a simple fact: Wall Street needs Bitcoin more than Bitcoin needs Wall Street.

Spot Bitcoin ETF Admits Big Financial Firms Worry About Numbers Currencies may have an impact on their business models, as nation-states fear the loss of power and control that non-sovereign currencies could bring to the global economy, and are now rapidly adopting central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) to counter what they see as a growing threat .

Financial companies have previously “tried and failed to eliminate cryptocurrencies.” For example, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently compared Bitcoin to smoking, saying Bitcoin is rife with fraud and that he would never buy Bitcoin, but he would defend your right to do so — — He even predicted that Bitcoin would reach $1 million. It's a dramatic shift from earlier this year, when he compared it to a pet rock and testified on Capitol Hill that he would "shut it down" if he were in government.

Reasons against BTC

There are two reasons for all this posturing: On the one hand , Dimon and his contemporaries lived through the initial digitization of the stock market in the 1980s and understand the scale of the transformation taking place. They want to move their targets as far into the future as possible to retain loyal (older) customers.

On the other hand, bank executives also know that open protocols are being used There is a lot of money to be made in the transformation process of replacing centralized companies, and the hope is to remain profitable for as long as possible.

Financial companies are doing their best to delay the inevitable and better serve the needs of younger generations by switching to better, lower-cost, more immediate platforms Squeezing every last dollar out of customers before their needs are met.

If individuals were able to self-custody their assets, a large number of fees would disappear, giving the holder complete control over how the assets are used. People are increasingly using cryptocurrencies to access a variety of services that were hitherto only provided by financial institutions.

Asset managers are buying Bitcoin and reducing exchange supply on a scale that exceeds even the wildest predictions, while ETF issuers have set their sites on ETH. If you think they're going to stop there, remember that all trusts holding crypto assets were structured similarly to Grayscale's GBTC trust before converting to ETFs.

Deception from the Investment Guru

When Nasdaq launched in 1971, many people ignored the exchange's potential. By 1991, it accounted for nearly half of all U.S. stock trading volume. It is now the world's second-largest exchange, behind the New York Stock Exchange, and the vast majority of exchanges around the world have either closed their open outcry trading floors or their open outcry trading platforms.  

In 1982, Dimon began his financial career as a stockbroker, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. He has previously spoken about the invasion of Wall Street by fintech startups; he may also vividly remember the launch of Nasdaq and the subsequent digitization of the New York Stock Exchange through the launch of SuperDOT (the electronic routing reform of the New York Stock Exchange) in 1984 The innovations it brought, and the upheaval it brought, started a trend of brokers leaving the trading floor and sitting behind computers.

Only this time, the benefits of these advances are available to the many instead of the few.

Fifty years ago, most floor traders probably never saw the end coming. This time around, Dimon and other old-schoolers see lower fees, more access and greater control, and certainly remember what happened in the early days of their careers.

They are wise to the path we are on, and no amount of deception can change that.