Arthur Hayes, former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, has said the approval of a Bitcoin-based exchange-traded fund will not benefit the cryptocurrency or the people who use it.
According to him, the institutions' interest in the asset threatens a situation "that we might not actually like in the end." Hayes has described investment giants such as BlackRock as "agents of the state". He has added:
"The government needs its citizens to sit in the fiat banking system in order to tax them via inflation to pay back ever-growing debts, it makes sense for institutional entities — who are, by nature, compliant with the state."
Hayes has added that in such a system, customers would not be able to use Bitcoin:
"You had some fiat, you bought this derivative. The asset manager went and bought some bitcoin and they put it in a custodian and it sits there."
Hayes says Bitcoin is the antithesis of statist money "that is here for us, the people, that have the ability to send money around the world." But he wonders aloud what might happen if most of it winds up in the custody of one or few institutions.