With the SEC approving Spot Bitcoin ETFs recently, attention has turned to Ethereum as the next ETF opportunity. So will the SEC give approval to any financial firm to offer a spot ETH ETF by their deadline date?
JP Morgan says it is 50/50, what do you think?
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Re-resolving NO, based both on the the title stating before May 23rd, and on the fact that these ETFs are not approved until the SEC has approved both the 19b-4 filings (exchange rule changes) and S-1 filings (registration statement). Only the rule changes were approved on May 23rd.
@TonyGao Manifold should be better at catching stuff like this ahead of time, apologies for the inconvenience. I'm sending you the 50 mana you lost.
commenting as a trader: the creator has been inactive for a month. the question asks if the ETF will receive approval before the 23rd, and the linked coindesk article says it was projected to be approved (the "deadline date") by the 23rd, so I believe this should resolve no.
as a mod: I hold shares here, so I'm pinging another mod about resolution.
@shankypanky Closed to hear other opinions but I believe this is correct, it should resolve NO and OP maybe set the date wrong?
@shankypanky Disagree, because the question description says "by their deadline date", not "before their deadline date". Also, the market was above 0% and unresolved after midnight Thursday.
@TonyGao the market question is, verbatim, "Will there be an SEC approval for a Spot Ethereum ETF before May 23rd, 2024?"
also, it's been unresolved because the creator has not been on Manifold for a month or more, per the betting and comment history.
@TonyGao I fully disagree with that, personally. before a date means before that date arrives.
still, there's another market related to the Eth ETF Approval, and @Joshua just posted the below comment as to why it hasn't yet resolved:
https://manifold.markets/JamesBills/when-will-a-spot-ethereum-etf-be-ap#80l6jj6y3ib
@shankypanky I view this as a sort of textualism vs intent debate. Obviously before means the day before, but I think it's also pretty clear what the author actually intended. Idk what the manifold meta/best practice is regarding textualism, I assumed since the creator resolves it, that it's intent based, in which case I assumed that if a mod has to resolve it they do so larping as the creator.
@TonyGao It's not only textualism about "before", the ETF hasn't been fully approved yet: https://manifold.markets/JamesBills/when-will-a-spot-ethereum-etf-be-ap#80l6jj6y3ib
@adssx Same argument, it's pretty clear if we're going by intent approval means the rule change approval.
@TonyGao I made a poll but don't expect many voters since I don't have any profile here. Idk if anyone has interest in signal boosting: https://manifold.markets/TonyGao/do-you-bet-on-manifold-based-on-tex
"We need S-1 approvals" -Bloomberg reporters "SEC Approval Could Still Take Months" -Bloomberg headline "The exchange applications [19b-4] are the first step in a two-step approval process." -Reuters "[19b-4] doesn't mean the ETFs will be authorized, though. Would-be issuers also need their S-1 applications approved before the products could begin trading." -Coindesk "Approving the 19b-4 applications is the first in a two-part process where the SEC would also have to approve issuers' registration statements, known as S-1s - a process that could take several weeks" -Fox Business "It is true of ETFs that its a nuclear key scenario. You have to turn the 19b-4 and you have to turn the S-1." -Bitwise CEO
@Carlosab83 Even that one has issues. There's 0% chance a ETH will be approved today on the 23rd, as the S-1 filing would also need to be approved, which might take weeks to months.
This doesn't really have anything to do with the market, but is anyone else annoyed at these approvals?
After 15 years, there still has emerged no valid use for bitcoin, and Ethereum is close to 100% dominated by scams and fraud, ranging from bogus ICOs to unbacked tokens and "MEV bots" that manipulate markets. And these guys are going to approve ETFs?
it seems clear that investors want exposure to btc and eth - that's very clear regardless of how you value either of them. better to have a regulated, well-understood vehicle within the traditional etf structure than to force investors to rely on less reputable firms.
@BobSnodgrass I'm not sure that's very clear - these ETFs have seen pretty limited uptake compared to comparable funds in other sectors. The GBTC fund has seen dramatic outflows and the Hong Kong funds saw uptake of only a few tens of millions the first day or something.
Ignoring that, though, isn't the government's job to protect consumers? I think my various family members have lost something like $8.5 million in cryptocurrency scams. There are something like 2 million lives ruined by the FTX scam alone, and that doesn't count Genesis, BlockFi, Celsius, the Indian phone scammers who target the old, Russian money launderers that are funding their war, and the way money was raised for ETH itself.
But let's suppose that one is OK with the possibility of scams. The issue is still that cryptocurrency is supported almost entirely by fraudulent buys with Tether, which "mints" a billion dollars every time there is a crash, has never published a true audit, is criminally banned from doing business in New York, and is a $100m bomb waiting to go off.
I would argue that the government should be attempting to completely wall off the cryptocurrency economy from the financial system and that's the best way to protect investors. They have already managed to essentially do that with Monero.
The government has a massive problem with Tether owning so many T-bonds that the entire financial system could be impacted when they finally get exposed.
@SteveSokolowski
- "limited uptake" -
ex-GBTC was $11b inflows in the first month. bloomberg described the launches as an 'unequivocal succes'. GBTC holders largely moved to lower-fee ETFs after several years of being unable to redeem. there is very clear demand from investors for these ETFs and it is better for investor protection than buying btc from some dodgy shop.
- "gov't protect consumers" -
1) they're doing a shit job in tradfi anyway see: spacs.
2) people getting scammed is a reason to give them a regulated, well-disclosed financial vehicle through which to gain exposure to crypto.
3) if your family members have $8.5m to burn the gov't doesn't really care that much about protecting them. can't protect people from speculation and losses.
4) if your family members have lost $8.5m to scammers idk what you think the gov't could do to protect them from themselves.
5) the FTX blowup was a non-US entity and bolsters the argument for bringing regulated products into the US market. and how were 2 million lives ruined? people are being made whole even after paying $120m in lawyer fees.
- "tether fud" -
don't want to debate tether fud specifics, it's been stale since like 2019. see #2 and #5 above. they own like .1% of all t bills, the "entire financial system" will be fine.
- "wall it off" -
that's been the explicit strategy for the last few years and it didn't work.
if you think it's all a scam and you've got it figured out and everybody else is wrong and btc has no use cases and tether is going to blow up and eth insiders did scams and it's all going to zero:
just. go. short. it.
here is a link to the recently-launched proshares short btc etf.
(thx for engaging in the debate btw!)
@BobSnodgrass I sold all the cryptocurrencies I had and am not interested in that space anymore. This might sound counterintuitive, but when I had 220 bitcoins, there was a lot less risk then after the bankruptcies when I ended up with 16. Having all the bitcoins would still leave me with a lot of money when the next bubble ended. So I got rid of them all and only bet on Manifold now.
The $8.5 million wasn't "burn" money. About $1.5 million was my father's money, and he sent it to people in Nigeria and Russia - he claims he was scammed at first, but that claim doesn't hold water given that he keeps doing it, so I cut all ties with him. Nevertheless, even though I've publicly posted about this at https://henrysokolowski.com/, and mentioned it on X, the government took no action against him.
I personally have never lost any money in bitcoin trading. I spent 150 hours researching lending firms and Genesis provided me with a fraudulent balance sheet, and BlockFi's CEO Zac Prince held a video call with me where he falsely stated to five witnesses that the company didn't have any outstanding loans from FTX (the FTX bankruptcy docket proves that was fraudulent.) But again, no criminal charges were filed despite the extensive fraudulent documentation provided and the five witnesses.
If I had lost money because the price fell, I agree would be acceptable to criticize. However, I take serious issue with your comment - several of your points are implying blame towards the victims of scams. It's never the victim's fault for being scammed. Scammers, both white collar criminals like Prince and Caroline Ellison, as well as the people in India running the fake virus scams, are at fault.
In response to your other comment, polls show that a significantly greater number of people owned or used bitcoins in 2021 than they did now, but the price of bitcoins remains about 2% higher. That indicates to me that there is a high probability that fraudulent activity is responsible.
I still disagree with your general argument - why would you or anyone want to allow in fraudulent activity into the country? It's not like we're talking that BTC is required to buy something and therefore these ETFs could somehow provide a way to buy it safely. There isn't any legitimate reason to provide consumers with the option. The government should be using its money to prosecute existing criminals, not load itself up with more entities to enforce ETF compliance against.
@SteveSokolowski The primary use case for bitcoin is speculation. The potential market is in the trillions as people love to gamble/invest (it is a continuum).
The use case for Ethereum and others are many (beyond gambling). Just because 99% of the use cases are junk, doesn't mean that they all are. For instance, the prediction market Polymarket has done hundreds of millions in volume running on Polygon. Prior to that Augur did a decent prediction market on Eth (Polymarket was also originally on ETH). Also Fairlay has been going for years using Bitcoin.
@MaybeNotDepends Bitcoin is also now the largest chain for NFTs (see 30d average: https://www.cryptoslam.io/blockchains ), which can be considered like speculation or art/status/collection (again, it's probably a continuum).
And then there are all the niche use-cases that might be illegal or on the fringe of legality (or illegal in one country but not in another, such as funding an anti-gov NGO in one country).
@SteveSokolowski
-"family got scammed"-
mate i had a peek at that website about your dad and it's really quite bizarre. you've posted addresses and financial records and doxxed your whole family. that's not generally a healthy way to handle divorce and family stuff.
as one random guy on the internet to another random guy on the internet, and in the most genuine way possible: please take care of yourself.
-"fraudulent activity"-
most technologies get used for fraud. it's remarkably not unique to crypto. check fraud, card fraud, romance scams, cayman island jeweler scams, covid loan fraud, enron, spacs, etc. all did their fraud just fine before crypto came around. i'm sure you'd agree those are true statements but you would probably respond with: "yes but those things have utility."
your argument, i think, is less about fraud and more about the belief that btc has no utility. but it isn't up to you (or the government) to decide what has utility. i think horses are dumb and people do scams with horses but that doesn't mean that horses should be banned by government decree.
if you think it has no utility and everybody else is playing a game of greater fool and you're right and they're wrong and the government should ban it because tether is going to blow up and you're basically michael burry but for crypto:
just. go. short.
@BobSnodgrass Thanks for your concern about "doxxing," but all of the information is obsolete, given that he doesn't live at the addresses or have the phone numbers anymore. I have no regrets posting the site - as I said before, the police never care about anything so you have to do it yourself. However, your response is interesting because there are several people who refuse to talk to me, stating that posting the site was reprehensible.
The purpose was to prevent others from giving money to him and to get him removed from his government positions. He was actually the treasurer (!) of a municipal authority, and it is a public good that he no longer has the authority to spend money on behalf of that township.
The problem was that nobody believed where the money was going without concrete evidence. Posting the evidence succeeded in preventing about $50,000 in additional loans being given to him. As he would have used it to buy bitcoins and trade with criminals in Eastern Europe, I believe there is some probability that Ukranian lives were saved as a result of that site. I stand by my decision and would do it again, because it did good for the world.
In regards to fraud occurring in other areas of finance, that is not a true comparison. Credit card fraud occurs as you correctly pointed out, but the charges are easily reversible. Even when the City of Tallahassee wrongfully deducated money from my business's bank account (I've never been to Tallahassee), I sued them and got a settlement.
With bitcoins, that isn't possible; the money is gone. Bankman-Fried's real estate is quaint compared to what some of these people do - these scammers are evil people who are using the money to move drugs and weapons. I've said elsewhere that I do think that cryptocurrency was designed from the start to make the worst of the worst fraud easier. Nakamoto's anonymity, the nonsensical decisions during the blocksize debate, and the obvious observation that its main use is fraud supports that argument. There actually is a guy involved in a high-level criminal gang who is one of the leading candidates for being Satoshi Nakamoto.
I actually is up to the government to make decisions on what is right and what is wrong. We vote for candidates to say that abortion is right or wrong, and whether terrorism should deserve punishment A or punishment B. My vote will be against Biden because Merrick Garland needs to go for not enforcing the law. But whichever way you vote, it's fair game for the government to decide that bitcoin use is right or wrong and to base a vote on it, because we do that all the time on many issues.