Stories · as read on the Mining station
Peanuts and the Spot Bitcoin ETF
A September 2023 Mining Disrupt News Surge episode on Cambridge's revised power index, the spot ETF wait, and why self-custody needs no brokerage.
Peanuts. That was the word a Mining Disrupt News Surge host chose to explain the race for a spot Bitcoin ETF.
The episode is the Mining Disrupt news update for Monday, September 4, 2023, published the next day. Bitcoin traded at $25,766 then. Today it trades at $79,649.
The host asked listeners to picture a nut processing plant that sells cashews, pecans and walnuts but has no peanuts. In his analogy, peanuts are Bitcoin. A big producer that wants into peanuts does not rush to the regulator while only one percent of the public is even aware of peanuts. It builds interest first, through the press, and asks for the stamp of approval once buyers are already waiting. The host went further and said BlackRock controls most of the major media outlets. The episode offers no evidence for that; it is his view.
He set the analogy beside a CNBC clip in which a guest, not named in the episode, said, "it is clear that Bitcoin is something that retail investors want access to." The same guest said the split between futures products and cash products could not go on forever. The host then read a report that JPMorgan Chase expected the SEC would likely have to approve multiple spot Bitcoin ETFs, with Grayscale's court win turning up the heat.
One phrase in that report bothered him: that investors might soon gain direct exposure to Bitcoin through their brokerage accounts. His answer was short: "you don't need a brokerage account to gain direct exposure to bitcoin." You can buy it from a miner or from a friend, with or without KYC, and the way to know for a fact that you hold it is to take it into self-custody.
The episode opened with a second story. Cambridge had revised its Bitcoin electricity index. Its old model put 2021 consumption at 104 terawatt-hours, 15 more than the revised estimate of 89.0. The host's point was that the machines change, so old power figures do not hold.
He closed on BlackRock itself. In his reading, the firm understands Bitcoin, knows what it is, and wants a piece of its absolute scarcity.
Four months after the episode, in January 2024, the SEC approved the first spot Bitcoin ETFs, BlackRock's among them. The host's media claim stays his opinion. His point about custody stands on its own: an ETF share is a claim held by someone else, and coins in self-custody are yours.
The full story is on Mining Disrupt at miningdisrupt dot com, and many more like it play around the clock on Bitcoin Radio.