ETFs do not bring Bitcoin any closer to being used as a currency, it actually encourages it to be held for extended periods of time. It will attract more potential long term holders who could not gain access to Bitcoin directly which should cause the price of Bitcoin to increase and reduce price dumps caused by panic sell offs.

Nothing can give the government more control of the Bitcoin in your wallet if you handle it using the right privacy tools.

Affect? It already has affected it.
ETFs advertise on national TV and they not only advertise the investment, but also indirectly bitcoin. Believe it or not, many people still don't know anything about bitcoin. They heard the word somewhere but never bothered since it was this Internet thing and they don't have a computer. Now that it's on TV and their pension fund is investing, they feel intrigued.
Let's not forget about people who would never buy real bitcoin but they might call their broker and tell him to get them some bitcoin through the ETF.
In future it's going to bring more of such people into the space. If you ask me, it's better if they own paper bitcoin owned by Larry Fink than not own it at all. Bitcoin exposure of at least 1% is something every single adult should consider.

Already as we know the ETF has given rise to the price of bitcoin which also creates more avenue for more investors to venture into the market and that doesn't mean that the government is in total control of anyone's bitcoin that is in their possessions. This doesn't change anything from bitcoin and we still have it as bitcoin and not fiat, there are people who don't still have access to bitcoin due to some restrictions could be poor network, lack of facilities etc. Only those who are privilege to be in the 1st and 2nd & 3rd world country could have total accessibility to it respectives that it allows both Rich & Poor to own it. ETF doesn't reduces the number of bitcoin neight does it add more to bitcoin other than development, again It has given more exposure to its price where by the number of investors has increase significantly which results to what gives rise to the recent price of bitcoin even before getting halving.

Do you understand how BTC etf's work? If you buy BTC etf's you are not owning any BTC, but you are buying shares of a BTC etf. So how can it increase the acceptance of BTC as a new currency, when people do not buy 'real' BTC's to store them in their own self custodial wallets.

After BTC spot etf's were approved in the U.S, we saw the impact it had on the price of BTC, because of the amount in inflows. So i think the impact of spot etf's can only be seen in the price, i.e. if there are huge outflows sometime later, then we can expect the price to drop too.

Although the Renaissance of Bitcoin, there wasn't anything like ETFs...IMHO, there's never been some sort of support to aid the growing process other the devaluation of some local FIAT currencies.
Buying ETF is more like owing some shares capital; it doesn't mean you've got any Bitcoins... Most investors would go for this as a monitoring tool on Bitcoin price movement and volatility.
I mean, what's the sense in over paying brokerages - a tune that's much higher than the normal 30 sat/Vbyte?
The influx was an increased price + volatility.
This will only make the government more hungry in time. Lol

One thing about the ETF, like others have mentioned, is that it brings about more exposure to Bitcoin among those who doubted it before, as well as the price surge, which also happened due to the news and hype.
 
But one thing I see as the negative part is that ETF promotes a way to own Bitcoin without actually owning any real one, like it promotes non-custodial ownership.

With the acquisition of Bitcoin through ETF, you won't be thinking about custodial wallets anymore; you just buy them just like you buy stock, and you don't have any private country about it. 

With the approval of the ETF - there is great hope for the future of bitcoin will be even better. ETF can encourage demand for bitcoin in the market regardless of how new investors invest in them - of course, not all new investors are interested in ETFs because some of them are interested in having real bitcoin in their wallet.

ETF can be considered an important fundamental to the future growth of the bitcoin market. This can be indirectly expected as the reason why adoption is growing over time - but the increase in adoption is not because of ETF, but because adopters know that bitcoin is a viable and profitable option as a means of payment.

I think it’s more positive than negative.

You reach a larger audience when they can simply buy it on the stock exchange or they can call their broker and buy some bitcoins thru the etfs. Before you had to deal with CEX which was a pain and took too long to set up.

There is also more liquidity. So one large whale won’t be able to manipulate the market as before. There is going to be less volatility so no more days where bitcoin has 20% swings in price.

Negative is that there is more regulation. Which can be seen on how exchanges are strict with their users.

What date is it? it is January 10, 2024? come one, it's already May 4, 2024 which is almost 4 months after SEC approving ETFs!

As we can see even just in 4 months, we already see few bad news about Bitcoin, the government seized a non custodial wallet that offer privacy tools i.e. Samourai Wallet and US will tax Bitcoin miners. What might happen in the future? we might see government force people to use CEX, file your full crypto holdings, and only use address that you had submitted if the address is belong to you.

The conclusion Bitcoin ETFs is bad.

They will surely increase the acceptance rate because companies such as Blackrock that have their ETFs approved will have a lot of customers making investments with them which is the reason why these companies have bought so many Bitcoins recently. The customers these companies get or have are the ones who are always doubtful about Bitcoin and its existence but are also willing to invest in it. So instead of buying Bitcoin directly, they make their investments through these companies. So when it comes to acceptance, I also believe that ETFs will increase that in the future.

When it comes to the government and control, ETFs are not always under the control of the governments, but it is true that it is a centralized mode of investment which means that you are giving away your personal information to a private and centralized company which isn't the case if you are investing in Bitcoin directly and buying through a decentralized platform such as Bisq.