Bitcoin Briefly Pushes Above $31K After Fidelity Spot ETF Filing

Asset management giant Fidelity is preparing to submit its own filing for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund. The news helped push bitcoin above the $31,000 mark earlier today. The Block reports: The launch of a spot bitcoin ETF has been described as a gamechanger among market pundits since it can provide a way for investors to get exposure to the market without having to deal with the underlying asset. BlackRock's filing specifically has been pointed out as significant given the firm's size and significance in global markets. "BlackRock's decision to file for a Bitcoin ETF signals that large institutional players are positive on the long-term outlook for the digital asset," Ark analyst Yassine Elmandjra wrote.

Fidelity is also a powerhouse, with tens of millions of retail brokerage clients and over $11 trillion in assets under its administration. The firm is also no stranger to crypto as it has operated an institutional custody and trading services business in the market since 2018. [...] This will be Fidelity's second attempt at such a product. In 2021, it filed for a bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund called the Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust but was denied by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in early 2022.

HODL

[Local ID10T]

To the Mooooon! /s

Re:HODL

[Joce640k]

"BlackRock's decision to file for a Bitcoin ETF signals that large institutional players are positive on the long-term outlook for the digital asset,"

No it fucking doesn't.

It just means they got a new license to make money hand-over-fist from any price volatility.

(nb. "Them", not "you" - the house never loses, you can lose your shirt)

And it will take a year of full time work to sell

[John Smith 2318]

If you want to sell that one bitcoin for $31K, it will take you a year of more than full time work to sell it. It might be only slightly better than minimum wage. You're better off getting a regular job. Bitcoin is how scammers get other people to provide goods & services for free. The bitcoin is worthless in the real world. The only way to get rid of it is to scam someone else into providing you goods or services for free in exchange for the worthless bitcoin. In short, bitcoin has no real world value,

Re:

[SinisterEVIL]

You put no effort or research into your comment, I award you zero points, and god have mercy on your soul.

Re:

[John Smith 2319]

Says the bitcoin shill. It is worthless, no matter how much you try to convince people otherwise.

Re:

[John Smith 2319]

We all know it is worthless. And nobody believes you anymore.

Re:

[gweihir]

Exactly. Easy to buy, impossible to sell. Like any good scam "product".

Re:

[braden87]

It's super easy to sell. Have you tried or just making assumptions?

Re:

[John Smith 2319]

Right, to an exchange, in lots worth no more than $100, and no more than 10 at a time, and on auction, so you will be undercut if you do not monitor constantly. That will take at least a year of of full time work if you want to get what it is supposedly "worth". The shit is worthless. Flipping burgers will make you more money.

Re:

[sponge_absorbent]

Why do you feel the need to spin ridiculous lies? You might not value Bitcoin but the market sure does. I have both bought and sold BTC recently and each time it was no more of a hassle than regular internet banking. Bitcoin is here to stay. Keep yelling at clouds old man.

Re:

[John Smith 2318]

Spin? Lies? Sounds like what people who say that you can sell bitcoin for money would say. Lies. It's not our fault you bought in. Now, if you have enough real cash then you can outsource the constant auction watching and posting to a third world shop where that labour is valuable, then perhaps you could get some of your money back out of it.

Re:

[FuzzMaster]

Please explain to us why one couldn't simply log into Coinbase and list a market sell for a bitcoin where the daily average volume exceeds USD 330 million. I'm just curious how that doesn't undermine the idea of a year of work to sell a bitcoin.

For the record, when the price first exceeded $25K a few years ago, I took profit and sold a bitcoin that I had mined many years ago. I have the capital gains tax receipt to prove it. I'm not sure why anyone thinks it would be any more difficult to sell today than i

Re:

[gweihir]

Yep, that matches the experience of a friend that had one BTC because he wanted to try that out. About impossible to sell except if you accept huge losses and even then it takes forever. The value may well be negative unless you are one of the large owners intent of keeping the scam alive.

Don't confuse the motive with support

[gavron]

"BlackRock's decision to file for a Bitcoin ETF signals that large institutional players are positive on the long-term outlook for the digital asset,"

No. Blackrock is positive on the opportunity to make a profit of those who invest in the digital [non-]asset. Remember, in every trade there's a buyer and a seller, and one thinks it's going up and the other thinks it's going to go down. Blackrock makes money on both, and they don't give a shit which one of the seller/buyer is right.

Re:

[Joce640k]

Is it just me?

How does a way to lose money even faster make Bitcoin more valuable?

I guess there really is no logic to it. It's greater fools all the way down.

After reading up on spot ETFs

[hdyoung]

I conclude that this is just another way to pull more money into the crypto ecosystem while addressing absolutely none of the extremely-well-known problems of the entire construct.

Until someone can explain to me why this is anything different (other than uttering the word “crypto” and expecting me to suddenly salivate like Pavlov’s dog) I will remain the old, out-of-touch fuddy duddy that I am and avoid crypto like the plague I have come to percieve it as.

Last time I looked out the window, it was literally raining cryptobro corpses. Just like every day for the past 12 months. Why the HELL is the SEC allowing mainstream investment houses to get into this? There are literally a dozen unknown people who basically control the price of the underlying asset, which is fundamentally based on solving a difficult but otherwise useless mathematical problem. Screw the claims, crypto is the LEAST secure asset class. How many crypto exchanges have vaporized overnight in the past year? To me, it seriously calls into question the trustworthiness of Blackrock and Fidelity that they’re even touching this.

This is not going to end well.

Re:After reading up on spot ETFs

[John Smith 2318]

But it is worthless. You can't sell it for money without labour that costs more than it is "worth". No one is buying your scam anymore.

Pyrite Pete's failed prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

by BTC at 100k by the end of the year.

On Monday April 26, 2021 @02:16AM UTC, Pyrite Pete [urbandictionary.com] had said:

Wait 1-2 months, and BTC will be twice its value. [slashdot.org]

That was back when bitcoin had already fallen, and down to about $47K at the time. It should've been back up to "twice its value" no later than June 26 2021 - over 1.5 years ago. It is now sitting at only about $30K.

Now that's what I call a prediction #FAIL!

Re:

[r1348]

Sounds like self-delusion to me.

Re:

[TheRealMindChild]

It is a finite resource that has demand. It's that simple

Re:

[r1348]

It has demand within a closed loop economy where no actual goods are exchanged. It's cryptobros trading with other cryptobros, nobody accepts them to sell goods or services.

Re:

[TheRealMindChild]

That just isn't true, but I'm sure it makes it easier to comprehend. You may equate it to something like WoW gold, but it being outside of your use cases doesn't negate the ones it has, or the ones that are used by others

Re:

[r1348]

WoW gold has intrinsic value because there's a single central authority (Blizzard) that mandates its use for in-game purchases in WoW. WoW popularity has created a grey market around it.

There's nothing like that in the crypto world, unless you count exchanges that also emit tokens ala FTX as centralized authorities, but you might get kicked out of crypto orgies if you do.

Re:

[TheRealMindChild]

Spare me. BTC has just as much "intrinsic value" as it is traded for goods and services, good and bad, physical and virtual. Hand waving about authority to do so is simply ridiculous. For Bitcoin, the network is the issuer, mandating its creation and function.

Re:

[r1348]

And as usual, crypto enthusiasts trying to explain its value have to resort to circular thought.

Re:

[TheRealMindChild]

Using digital money to trade and barter. Circular logic indeed.

Re:

[John Smith 2319]

Somebody please mod this up. It is clearly the financial sector's long game on cryptocurrencies.

A fool and his money are sooner parted.

[AntisocialNetworker]

"... a way for investors to get exposure to the market without having to deal with the underlying asset.".
Now I can lose money on bitcoin without needing to know what I'm doing.
Not much change really....

Should that not be $250k by now?

[gweihir]

I distinctly remember some promises like that. Obviously there were fantastical fabrications by the stupid and those profiteering from the scam.

Investing without exposure to underlying risk :|

[takionya]

theblock.co [theblock.co]: “The launch of a spot bitcoin ETF has been described as a gamechanger among market pundits since it can provide a way for investors to get exposure to the market without having to deal with the underlying asset.“”

Is this anything like Credit Default Swaps and the Sub-Prime mortgage market. As in nobody including the people trading in bitcoin ETFs have any clue about the underlying value of the financial instrument.

Re:

[FuzzMaster]

It's more like the gold-backed ETF, GLD. You might care to review the price performance of gold since its inception.

Re:

[takionya]

FuzzMaster [slashdot.org]: “It's more like the gold-backed ETF, GLD. You might care to review the price performance of gold since its inception.

Except bitcoin ETF isn't backed by gold, it's backed by .. er ... ?

Re:

[FuzzMaster]

It's backed by bitcoin, which is backed by miners, who are backed by the electrical grid.

Re:

[Sebby]

It's backed by bitcoin, which is backed by miners, who are backed by the electrical grid.

Hardly - it's backed by magical rainbow unicorns (ie. "imagination" ie. nothing actually real).

Re:

[FuzzMaster]

Have fun staying poor.

Re:

[Sebby]

Thanks! I will.

Re:

[FuzzMaster]

Sucks to realize what you missed, huh? [slashdot.org]

Re:

[znrt]

go figure, but it urns out that this same frank chapparro guy was seeking guru lectures from ftx executives barely a month before the whole scam came crashing down. the guru prophesized that more deregulation was needed, but left ftx right after the interview, to greener pastures. this moron is still shilling, though, like nothing ever happened. comedy gold.

The lack of understanding astoundsâ¦

[moonboy]

The lack of understanding of Bitcoin by Slashdotters is astounding. People equating Bitcoin with âoecryptoâ show they obviously have no clue, lumping them together as though they are the same thing. And the old âoeBitcoin has no valueâ trope is so tired. It obviously has $30,000ish of real value as of the time of this post. If Bitcoin has no value, then neither does any currency. Do you know what value is? Do you know what money is? Do you know what a medium of exchange is? Itâ(TM)s

Re:

[FuzzMaster]

It's mostly sour grapes. I would be salty, too, if I had seen dollar parity reported on /. and failed to grasp the opportunity.

New account

[John Smith 2319]

Continuing the count from 2318 (which has more positive moderation than negative yet is still "bad" karma - convenient). Now 2319. New account with every comment if necessary - no problem. You all know who John Smith NNNN is. Your moderation is stupid and pointless. You cannot silence John Smith. So fuck right off, you pathetic cryptobro shills.