Tomorrow is a special day for Ethereum and for the huge community surrounding this development. After many years of waiting, spot ETFs backed by ether are coming to the US market.
From an asset price perspective, there are high expectations, considering how ETFs were a bullish catalyst for bitcoin (whose ETFs were launched in January 2024 ).
Vitalik Buterin, co-creator of Ethereum and the main visible face behind this network specialized in the execution of smart contracts, has spoken out several times on the subject.
In 2017, for example, he retweeted a post by Bitcoin populariser Andreas Antonopoulos that said: “If you measure Bitcoin’s success by the approval of the current, outdated industry it replaces, you’re doing it wrong.” Buterin, in his retweet, added: “Several commentators on the rejection of the Bitcoin ETF, for example.”
In this way, the Ethereum leader downplayed the importance of the approval or rejection of the Bitcoin ETF. In turn, Antonopoulos responded to Buterin: “Agreed. There are several videos where I said it was a bad idea to centralize access via ETF.”
A year later, in 2018, Buterin wrote the following on X (a social network then called Twitter):
“I think there’s too much emphasis on ETFs for bitcoin, ether, or whatever, and not enough emphasis on making it easy for people to buy $5-$100 worth of crypto via cards at corner stores. The former is better for driving up the price, but the latter is much better for real adoption.”
Vitalik Buterin, creator of Ethereum.
It is worth clarifying that, currently, buying bitcoin , ether or other cryptocurrencies is relatively simple through dozens of applications, platforms, exchanges, etc. In this sense, there has been an evolution in the user experience when acquiring cryptocurrencies .
In 2020, Buterin again referred to cryptocurrency ETFs, saying that MicroStrategy, with its bitcoin purchases becoming more frequent, was trying to turn its shares into a “de facto ETF for regulatory arbitrage purposes . ”
More recently, in 2022, Buterin claimed to be happy about the fact that many bitcoin ETFs were being delayed :
“I don’t think we should be chasing big institutional capital head-on. In fact, I’m kind of glad that a lot of the ETFs are holding back. The ecosystem needs time to mature before we get even more attention.”
Vitalik Buterin, creator of Ethereum.
Just hours before the launch of Ethereum ETFs in the United States, Buterin has chosen to remain silent. He has not yet commented on these investment funds despite the interest of the community.
