From the standpoint of the average consumer, there is no difference. It's just a different way of betting on the Bitcoin meme, which is all most people actually want to do with Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a meme(coin)? Interesting take.
As for why consumers want this, I've discussed this before in the
Anon Paradox: consumers want to keep their "big" money someplace... safe--even if they would like to keep their "small money" someplace anonymous.
In other words:
- Most people don't want to hide their life savings in a mattress.
- Most people don't want to put their retirement savings inside of their iPhone where they can simply lose it in a landfill.
- Most people would be afraid somebody might physically steal it from them if they kept their own savings or major holdings on their person.
- Most people don't want to build a mini version of Fort Knox in their spare bedroom.
- Most people don't like the idea of having something in their house that others might kill for.
In other words, you work all of your life to be a great dentist, and somebody else focuses their life's efforts on, say,
keeping your money safe.
That's why we have banks and other financial institutions. It's not a government conspiracy, it's just a product that consumers want and need.
And Coinbase and the ETF are really just variants of the same product.
I'm pretty sure a banker
wouldn't like it to be a dentist...
It's much better to be able to be the sole issuer of money (unlike dentists who don't have a monopoly in their profession). You print a piece of paper that in reality is worth 10 cents and you claim it's worth $100 or even 500 or 1000 CHF. Then people are forced to enter the rat race and never escape.
I don't know if it's a conspiracy or not, but I'm pretty sure 80% of human beings are deeply insecure to trust themselves, therefore bankers (and the state) fill the niche of providing
"security".
Because of this, most people use an amazing invention of civilization called, "specialization".
There is some
debate about the advent of civilization and whether it really benefitted us.
Homo Sapiens started as a decentralized species (hunter gatherers/tribes of
150 people) that is slowly leaning towards centralization (urbanization).
It's not just CEX and mining pools that promote centralization... forming cities/armies/governments 10k years ago was the start of centralization.
I understand why people did it, you gain so much power compared to small tribes of hunter gatherers. Same for mining pools vs solo miners.
