Not Everyone Wants a Bitcoin ETF

"I don't think an ETF is going to be some kind of massive magnet," Pierre Rochard, founder of the Brooklyn-based Bitcoin Advisory LLC, told CoinDesk.

For Bosworth, the biggest risk that a bitcoin ETF presents is that it might incentivize institutions to work collectively to influence the ecosystem.

This is the same reason that bitcoin veteran Christopher Allen, the former principal architect at Blockstream, distrusts the institutions that are working to create a regulated bitcoin ETF. "The real reason they are doing it is they can play financial games to make them a much higher interest rate than what they would otherwise," Allen told CoinDesk.

"We're talking about a very niche part of the market that would be interested in a bitcoin ETF product," Rochard said.

It's important to remember that any euphoria about a bitcoin ETF is still academic.

On December 5, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce told the audience during fireside chat in Washington D.C. not to "Hold your breath," because a regulator-approved bitcoin ETF could still be years away.

Even if an ETF were to be approved, bitcoin advocates question how this structure - in which a fund owns underlying assets and divides ownership of them into shares - would address the idiosyncrasies of cryptocurrency.

As Caitlin Long, co-founder of the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition, wrote in a Forbes column, rehypothecation is antithetical to the bitcoin ethos because there is a finite bitcoin supply, 21 million at max.

"We intend to stay true to the core tenets of bitcoin," Gurbacs said, adding that ETF holders would be primarily exposed to the asset defined by Bitcoin Core unless another chain became dominant and equally secure.

Like many bitcoin advocates, Rochard said that anything which boosts bitcoin's overall liquidity - even modestly - is a good thing.