Ok, you are right and Im wrong. Satoshi would be proud of the world's most loyal central banking partner taking a controlling interest in BTC. I'm sure replacing the peer to peer electronic cash system with Wall St. derivative products is in the 2008 white paper somewhere.

Even the most hard-core Bitcoin purests recognize that gov has hijacked the narrative to push away from currency/payment system to a "digital gold" asset you hodl. But again, function doesn't matter if BTC appreciation alone is the ticket to financial freedom.

FobTies said:

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Blackrock isn't speculating or investing in BTC. They bought to control it.

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I generally agree with the first part.
I'm not sure about control, but they purchased so much BTC to securitize it and create exposure-related products that can be sold to retail customers. BLK's holdings are a function of the capital requirements for holding BTC.

Holding BTC is expensive, and BLK probably needs more flow to make the venture profitable. Thus, the advertising push.

I mean the analogy of China owning our debt isn't a good one. Someone can own 99% of the total supply of btc and have zero control over the network.

Plus blackrock isn't going out buying btc for themselves. They're sellling a service for the clients to buy btc.

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They're sellling a service for the clients to buy btc.

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Nope, wrong.

How so?

NYKNYC applies

From the BLK prospectus

Quote:

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enables investors to get exposure to bitcoin through the convenience of an exchange-traded product, helping remove the operational, tax, and custody complexities of holding bitcoin directly

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Shareholders are not buying BTC; they are buying exposure to BTC. Paper BTC, if you will.
Again, NYKNYC applies.

Right it's a derivative. But the ETF inflows isn't blackrock arbitrarily deciding to stack btc like the other poster implied. It's based on their clients wanting btc exposure.

And the exposure is the service I said.

you posted

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service for the clients to buy btc.

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ETF holders are renting BLKs BTC

I understand your point. The clients are getting a derivative. By that logic you could say the are actually renting a lease agreement between blackrock and Coinbase as Coinbase is the entity holding the btc.

But my point is blackrock isn't sitting on cash and deciding to buy btc with their cash as an investment. Their clients are asking them to buy the ETF and it's the clients cash that's being used to accumulate the btc. Which is drastically different than saying blackrock is buying up all the btc to control it.

Yukon Cornelius said:

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Someone can own 99% of the total supply of btc and have zero control over the network.

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The network has become irrelevant. The market now accepts the asset as "digital gold", inflation hedge, etc. By control, Blackrock is holding a large enough block to control the forward narrative. If Blackrock dumped their holding, BTC would crash and Saylor would become SBF over a couple weeks.

I also saw somewhere that Blackrock had a cautionary disclaimer about there being no guarantee the 21M cap on supply won't be expanded. Not really sure what that is rooted in, but seems like that could be a big deal. Also not something the inventor(s) had in mind. Surely you don't think that is a good thing.

FobTies said:

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Ok, you are right and Im wrong. Satoshi would be proud of the world's most loyal central banking partner taking a controlling interest in BTC. I'm sure replacing the peer to peer electronic cash system with Wall St. derivative products is in the 2008 white paper somewhere.

Even the most hard-core Bitcoin purests recognize that gov has hijacked the narrative to push away from currency/payment system to a "digital gold" asset you hodl. But again, function doesn't matter if BTC appreciation alone is the ticket to financial freedom.

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I'm still not convinced Satoshi wasn't a part of the government or intelligence agencies.

Given that the FED was created in secrecy and sold to the people via deception and manipulation, I could very well see the same type of thing happening here. Though to be fair, as others have pointed out, I fail to see a downside in which our entire system pivots to BTC.

One downside would be the network prohibiting certain transactions.

FobTies said:

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Yukon Cornelius said:

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Someone can own 99% of the total supply of btc and have zero control over the network.

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The network has become irrelevant. The market now accepts the asset as "digital gold", inflation hedge, etc. By control, Blackrock is holding a large enough block to control the forward narrative. If Blackrock dumped their holding, BTC would crash and Saylor would become SBF over a couple weeks.

I also saw somewhere that Blackrock had a cautionary disclaimer about there being no guarantee the 21M cap on supply won't be expanded. Not really sure what that is rooted in, but seems like that could be a big deal. Also not something the inventor(s) had in mind. Surely you don't think that is a good thing.

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That language is built into the Risk Factors section of the prospectus. But it is hard fork dependent, so while possible, it would be very, very unlikely.

IMO, Unlikely the CIA was involved in the creation, but we know they were involved in the early days. There is no doubt they targeted the peer to peer payment system function to be undermined, and replaced with a speculative asset. In early days, BTCs core purpose was to be a currency that challenged central banking and the USD global reserve. Now, guys like Saylor are towing the line for CIA/Fed in preaching how it's not a threat to the USD, those who don't do that are silenced. (ie Roger Ver)

If BTC ever scaled to become a global payment system used by multinational corps and other countries for large scale commodity sales/intl. trade, in time it would dethrone the USD as global reserve. Then US gov would lose its ability to inflate the debt, QE out of crisis, and sanction adversaries.

I actually support BTC scaling and succeeding to that end, but as long as the CIA/Fed exist, they won't let it happen. Trump also doesn't want BTC to become a payment system challenging the USD.

People can argue that the current BTC function and narrative is better today, but it's been documented that it evolved to that as I outlined. So no need for longs to attack the messenger.

tysker said:

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…so while possible, it would be very, very unlikely.

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These are words that have been commonly heard before many statistical anomalies.

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By control, Blackrock is holding a large enough block to control the forward narrative. If Blackrock dumped their holding, BTC would crash and Saylor would become SBF over a couple weeks.

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Blackrock's "holding" is in their custody on behalf of their clients who hold IBIT. So in this hypothetical scenario where they dump it, they are just stealing $50B from their own clients?

Again. It's not blackrocks btc. It's their client's. They don't have autonomy over the btc to unilaterally dump it.

And blackrock can't change the supply total. Ithats the point. They can own 99% of supply hypothetically and have zero control over the network. Ie how supply cap.

If they "fork" it they will just devalue their current holdings and the network will kick them out.

Yukon Cornelius said:

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Again. It's not blackrocks btc. It's their client's.

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Yukon Cornelius said:

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If they "fork" it they will just devalue their current holdings and the network will kick them out.

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Whether owning outright or holding in a fund, they still control it. They can close the fund and liquidate holdings.

The point being Blackrock is a major player, the largest player in BTC, with the largest AUM in the world. Their BTC is a drop in the bucket, they aren't worried about it's depreciation. It's less than 1/2 of 1% of their AUM.

Sure they can stop selling the etf. Have you seen how much money they are making in fees? Doubt they close it.

And they still can't dictate any change to the code regardless how much control they have over the supply. Hence the entire point of btc.

They can if they want to move to their own fork.

That bitcoin would become "lost" on the main fork while it would become the only data circulating in the Blackfork.

Any thing added to their fork would be going through a 1-way door.

Any attempt to move out of their fork would be denied. Remember, if you don't hold the keys, it's not your coin.

In the last 11 months IBIT has more inflows than any ETF launched since 2014. But they're going to close the fund or hard fork the coin for some reason this dude can't articulate.

The discourse on this thread has somehow gotten even worse than it was two years ago. Objectively stupid takes.

However much Blackrock is making in ETF fees, it pales in comparison to how much they would lose if they let lose something that threatens their global hegemony. Blackrock/CIA/Fed all share the same concerns over any potential threat to central banking and USD.

[Calling out moderation won't get you anywhere but a ban. Keep it up and your bans will increase in length -- Staff]

Bitcoin is helping the dollar not threatening it

Yukon Cornelius said:

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Bitcoin is helping the dollar not threatening it

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Pomp also tries to spin a new btc global reserve currency as "helping the dollar". He uses an example about many restaurants on a block bringing "density", then he throws out the cliche that "a rising tide lifts all boats."

Of course bitcoiners are going to find any explanation they can to assert that BTC is not a threat to the USD. They know it's gameover otherwise. You are no different.

You were wrong about Saylor being able to "force convert" bonds into shares at any MSTR price. You are wrong about this too. People can get rich on BTC but they can't make alternate realities come true.

I'm not familiar with his view points there but that's not what I mean.

Bitcoin helps drive demand for US treasuries to back stable coins. Paul Ryan oddly enough has a pretty articulate description for it.

The USD is already king of the mountain. The Fed can pretty much manipulate it however they want to achieve their desired objectives.

So you can make some roundabout arguement about BTC solidifying the USD as king indirectly thru stablecoins. That may help you sleep well at night, but we are all gonna watch from the sidelines as Powell and Bessent hash it out. Behind them are a bunch of deep state crooks that will do everything they can to make sure BTC stays a hodl digital gold, and never anything more.

Well in that scenario it would definitely benefit the dollar. I get the feeling you're trying to have this anti Bitcoin argument with me or something. You keep trying to make points against things I'm not even saying.

Not really, I'm addressing the gorilla in the room, where the rubber will meet the road. You are grasping at anything you can you pretend BTC and USD have some mutually beneificial value added relationship. Which is fine. Nothing personal.

I'm pro bitcoin as as a decentralized payment system that checks the gov and protects personal liberty, like Satosi. I just think it's much more likely we get there by using the Constitution and a libertarian minded executive and legislative branch to abolish the Fed first. The current alternative of pigeon holing BTC as a harmless store of value that will live side by side in harmony with the USD and central banking, is going no where. It's a game of musical chairs. You guys are playing right into the deep states hand by going along with that.

I'm not grasping at anything. You have a terrible habit of saying Im saying stuff I'm not. Have a good one

You said bitcoin is helping the dollar and it's not a threat to its global reserve status. I'm not making that up. It's literally the opposite of bitcoins original purpose.

It's ok, there is nothing wrong with adopting whatever narrative you think will make your account grow. But that has nothing to do with dismantling the Fed and eliminating MMT. The latter benefits society, the former benefits hodlers, until it doesn't.

We can check back on this thread years later, and play the Saylor tapes.

We have 15 years of history. Has btc weakened the dollar? It's objectively created new demand of US treasuries. Tether is I believe the 15th largest holder of them.

I never said BTC is weakening the dollar. I mentioned it's a potential threat to the USD in world dominated by central banks and MMT. Is it a direct threat now, no.....bc gov has succeeded in pigeon holing it into a get rich "digital gold", largely held on gov controlled custodial platforms.

It's very simple: A decentralized p2p global digital reserve currency is much LESS likely to succeed side by side with central banking and MMT. It's much MORE likely to succeed if we Constitutionally abolish the Fed first. People either understand that, or people refuse to go there bc they believe BTC is going to become everything Saylor says it will.

Yukon Cornelius said:

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Tether is I believe the 15th largest holder of them.

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Tether is a money laundering scheme. I think it's so widely accepted by people in finance and the AML community at this point it almost feels like the product was designed as a honey pot