BITCOIN will now be traded, on the New York Stock Exchange.

Hello learners, I hope you are having a great day today.

So last night, as per India Time, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the USA, approved applications from 11 Fund Managing entities, to set up an Exchange Trading Fund (ETF), that will track the price of Bitcoin and will be traded on multiple approved stock exchanges in the USA. SEC is equivalent to SEBI in India.

Today, we will briefly talk about, What is Bitcoin. If you don’t already know it. What is ETF? And what does it mean to investors, traders, technologists, Product Managers, Data Scientists, and Businesses?

What is Bitcoin?

To start with, Bitcoin is a Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash Transfer system. The beauty of Bitcoin is that it doesn’t need any Bank or government to manage it. Rather, it is run by thousands of independent entities, that anyone can join.

Do you remember, ‘BitTorrent’, a software used earlier, to download movies, and whatnot? Bitcoin is similar, in its ethics, but has a different use case. You are welcome to go into details, for now, just know, that Bitcoin is a blockchain technology, that makes ‘Ledgers’ open and accessible to a large number of people, at the same time.

This makes the financial system, transparent and secure.

What is an Exchange Trade Fund (ETF)?

An ETF is like a stock, that tracks the price of other assets (Ex. Gold) or indices (Ex. S&P 500). The fund is set up by fund-managing entities, that buy in bulk, and allow traders or investors, to buy it without actually having it in custody.

You can also invest in Gold in India with financial entities like Airtel Payments Bank Limited, where you can buy the gold, without actually having it in custody. There are around 13 ETFs active in India tracking prices of Gold, Sensex, etc.

What does it mean to be below people?

Investors: If you used to think that Bitcoin is a scam or some thin-air currency, that is ultimately going to fade, you are proven wrong. If you already have Bitcoin, congratulations on the gains. If you don’t, I would still like to say, that you are still early.

Hoping that Indian Financial Institutions will pitch in now, and set up Bitcoin ETF. The government will be sceptical, I don’t know how many blockchain experts are there in the Indian government. But, the onus is on enthusiasts like us, who will handhold the government institutions, just like it happened in the USA.

Traders:
All the people that are there for short-term trades, have to keep in mind the initial volatility of the market, in the short term. They can keep on trading Bitcoin with more confidence. Probably you can expand your trades to similar blockchains, or the NFT market.

Technologists
Bitcoin is a blockchain technology, that has been running on its own since 2009, no government ever backed it, rather it was always faced with strong resistance, yet it prevailed. Demonstrating the strong fundamentals of this technology, and future scaling abilities. Hence, if you are a technologist, start learning about blockchain now.

Product Managers
Product managers are the architects, they have to decide, what needs to be built, and what value it is required to deliver. Blockchain always demonstrated a way of doing the same things, in a different way. If you are a Product Manager, beware, future systems are preferred to be decentralised, and hence it is important to align our mindset accordingly, right now.

Data Scientists

Well, Data is a new buzz of our generation. As a digital being, we are leaving enormous data footprints, and there are a lot of things to learn from the same. But, when we reach the prediction stage, using the available data, we desire to act on our learning. We want machines to make decisions on our behalf.

Here, Artificial Intelligence comes. Since, our childhood we have seen Machines go rogue, in movies like Terminator. There is a fear of effective governance of an AI system. Let me tell you, that there is no better way to govern AI, than Blockchain. And, now when blockchain technology is gaining credibility, it is time to use it for more use cases, like controlling an AI.

Businesses
Well, till now businesses are designed on centralised systems, everything that is done, is done inside out. Blockchain offers a decentralised way of doing the same things, only this time, it is more transparent and secure.

Hence, time for businesses to plan their migration from centralised to decentralised governance, through distributed consensus and self-executing smart contracts.

The purpose of this post is not to convince you to buy Bitcoin. Rather it is to signify the increasing provenance of Blockchain technology. Time to start considering it as a serious area of consideration and learning.

Also, it is time for us to start imagining the finance of the world, in a decentralised and transparent way. Maybe Bitcoin never replaces, transacting currency, maybe it never has to. All Bitcoin is doing is demonstrating successful Proof of Concept of Blockchain technology, to handle some of the most critical aspects of human life, which includes but is not limited to Financial systems.

I hope through this, you got a fair idea of what is happening in the crypto industry. If you are not already into it. My work would be done, if you can accept to learn more about this astonishing technology.

I wish you lots of love and success.

~R