Establishment’s Takeover of Bitcoin Creates a New List of Risks
- ‘Bitcoin OGs no longer have control,’ says longtime investor
- ETFs now hold about as many Bitcoin as Satoshi’s wallet
The supply of new Bitcoin keeps on shrinking, a key part of the blockchain’s design.
Photographer: Angel Garcia/BloombergBitcoin exchange-traded funds have been such a smashing success in the US that they now hold more than 1 million of the tokens, or about 5% of what currently exists. That’s in the same ballpark as the amounts that have long been frozen in the wallet of the market’s original whale: The cryptocurrency’s anonymous and enigmatic creator known as Satoshi Nakamoto.
Another buyer of equal size potentially may arrive on the scene, as a Senate ally of Donald Trump’s pushes to pass a bill that would require the Federal Reserve to sell some of its gold in order to fund the purchase of 1 million Bitcoin for a US government stockpile. In the corporate world, Michael Saylor’s software company MicroStrategy is sitting on about $38 billion worth of the tokens and has been tapping capital markets to buy more.