Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and ETF experts quickly responded to the rumor that began to spread uncontrollably yesterday regarding BlackRock and Coinbase.
Yesterday, rumors spread uncontrollably that Coinbase was not holding actual BTC on behalf of BlackRock, but was instead issuing IOUs, and that the two companies were suppressing the price of Bitcoin.
IOU, which is short for “I owe you” in English, refers to tokens used to represent debt to the other party in the crypto world. Allegedly, BlackRock receives billions of dollars in investments in its ETF, while holding IOUs issued by Coinbase instead of real Bitcoin in return for these investments.
It started with Justin Sun's post
The rumor began with a post by Tron CEO Justin Sun. Sun criticized the cbBTC token, which Coinbase recently launched and was said to be backed by Bitcoin at a 1:1 ratio. The CEO stated that cbBTC has no proof of reserve, no auditing, and anyone's balance can be frozen at any time. Sun said, "Essentially, this is just 'trust me'. Any US court can seize your BTCs. There is no better example of central bank Bitcoin than this. It's a dark day for BTC."
“Everyone is waking up now”
Quoting Sun’s post, an account named @TylerDurden suggested that Coinbase was not holding actual BTC for BlackRock and was merely issuing an IOU:
“Coinbase is just writing an IOU for BlackRock. Everyone is waking up now. I hope Coinbase has a bank run.”
Armstrong's response was quick
Armstrong’s response to this post was not long in coming. “All ETF transactions are completed on the blockchain at the final stage,” said the Coinbase CEO, adding that they are a public company and that Deloitte audits Coinbase every year. Armstrong added that they cannot share Bitcoin addresses belonging to institutional customers on their behalf.
“You can be sure they are holding 100 percent real BTC”
ETF experts also chimed in and wrote that the claims were untrue. ETF expert Nate Geraci said, “Regardless of what Coinbase does or does not do, you can be sure that ETFs hold 100% real BTC. They said the same thing about physical gold ETFs. Those who continue this nonsense do not understand how ETFs work.”
“They saved the BTC price from the cliff many times”
Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas also stated that these theories are unrealistic and said, “The only thing ETFs and BlackRock have done is save the BTC price from the cliff over and over again.”
“If you believe that, I have a good bridge.”
Finally, Commercial Lawyer Joe Carlasare commented, “If the IOU rumors about Coinbase and ETFs are true, it would mean that there is a large fraud conspiracy involving at least four law firms, two auditing firms, an auditor, Coinbase employees, and BlackRock, Fidelity, and other companies. If you believe that, I have a good bridge.”
✒️Uzmancoin
