Don’t Buy Bitcoin ETFs

Only buying bitcoin and holding your UTXOs can give you true exposure to bitcoin.

The below is a direct excerpt of Marty’s Bent Issue #1098: “Don’t buy bitcoin ETFs.” Sign up for the newsletter here.

It finally happened. The SEC has given the market permission to offer Bitcoin ETFs to investors. This is something that many in the Bitcoin space have been anticipating for the better part of a decade. The Winklevoss twins wanted to launch one in 2013 but were cock blocked by the SEC. Since then there have been many more times when people thought we were “just days away” from getting ETF approval, but it never seemed to come to fruition.

That all changed this week when the SEC decided to give the green light to the exchange traded fund world to offer bitcoin products. As you can see from the tweet above, ProShares was the first to the bell with their Bitcoin futures ETF which launched this morning. Now, this may be a significant cultural moment for Bitcoin. Love it or hate it, it’s hard to deny that having Bitcoin ETFs on the market won’t act as a social stamp of approval for many skeptics out there. With that being said, your Uncle Marty is here to tell you not to buy any Bitcoin ETFs, but especially not Bitcoin ETFs that are based on bitcoin futures contracts.

The nature of futures contracts is such that they have a range expiration dates that force traders to settle up upon expiry. The nature of settling futures contracts and rebalancing by buying new contracts with later expiration dates means that these funds will naturally come with more fees. Not only that, but the contracts can be trading in contango or backwardation at any given point in time, which will affect (positively or negatively) your returns. Your bitcoin exposure is at the whim of futures speculators and not the spot price of bitcoin at any given point in time. Even when an ETF that is backed by actual bitcoin is released, don’t buy it.

“Why not, Uncle Marty? Seems like a great way to get exposure.” Well freaks, that may be true, it may be a great vehicle to get some exposure to the price of bitcoin at any given point in time. However, it does not give you actual exposure to bitcoin. Only buying bitcoin and holding your UTXOs can do that. Furthermore, the exposure that you’d be getting via these ETFs is denominated in cuck bucks, which are quickly being debased in front of our eyes. When things get weirder on the inflation front – and they will get weirder, the nature of monetary policy + fiscal policy + supply chain constraints demands that it will – the last thing you’d want is to realize is that you’re holding nothing but shitty paper claims on cuck bucks that are losing value faster than moldy yogurt.

The only way to have peace of mind with your bitcoin exposure is to actually own and hold bitcoin the bearer instrument, which is represented by UTXOs. BTC is the ETF. (Not $BTC, the Grayscale ETF that will be launched soon – fucking Barry Silbert.) The best exposure is sats exposure and the only way to get that is to put your big boy/girl pants on, get your hands dirty, and learn how to take possession of your UTXOs.

Stacking actual sats is the only thing that matters in this game. Don’t get distracted by ETFs that run on cuck bucks.