WTF is a bitcoin ETF?

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WTF is a bitcoin ETF? : The Indicator from Planet Money

 

SYLVIE DOUGLIS, BYLINE: NPR.

(SOUNDBITE OF DROP ELECTRIC SONG, “WAKING UP TO THE FIRE”)

 

COURTNEY THEOPHIN, BYLINE: (As Jim Crypto) Cha-ching (ph). You're watching Coin Craze with me, Jim Crypto (ph). I'm here to make you money trading cryptocurrency. And you know what I say - whether the markets are going to the moon...

 

+ Cha-ching : 돈 소리를 표현하는 의성어로, 보통 금전적인 면에서 기뻐할때 쓰임

+ go to the moon : 가즈아! (암호 화폐의 가치가 빠르게 상승하고 있다는 유행어로, 일론 머스크가 처음 사용한 것으로 알려짐)

 

(SOUNDBITE OF SYNTH TRILL)

 

THEOPHIN: (As Jim Crypto) ...Or crashing down to Earth (laughter)...

 

+ crash down : 부서지다, 붕괴하다, 망하다

 

(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION)

 

THEOPHIN: (As Jim Crypto) ...There's always cash to be made on coins. Let's go to the phones. First up, we got Brian (ph) from Maryland.

 

KENNY MALONE, BYLINE: (As Brian) Hey, Jim. Cha-ching.

 

THEOPHIN: (As Jim Crypto) Cha-ching, my friend. What you got for me?

 

MALONE: (As Brian) I've been eyeing this cryptocurrency called Bobblecoin (ph). It seems like it's really taken off lately. I'm wondering if I should get in.

 

+ eye : (특히나 탐이 나거나 의심스러워서) 쳐다보다

+ take off : 이륙하다, 떠나다, 급격히 인기를 얻다(유행하다)

 

THEOPHIN: (As Jim Crypto) Yeah. Oh, yeah. Bobblecoin is hot right now, my friend. Some might say there's even a bubble happening in Bobblecoin.

 

(SOUNDBITE OF BUBBLE POPPING)

 

MALONE: (As Brian) A Bobble bubble?

 

THEOPHIN: (As Jim Crypto) Sounds like trouble, but I think this bubble has still got some air left in it.

 

(SOUNDBITE OF BUBBLE POPPING)

 

THEOPHIN: (As Jim Crypto) That's a buy from me, Colin. Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy.

 

MALONE: (As Brian) It's Brian, but thanks, Jim.

 

THEOPHIN: (As Jim Crypto) Next caller, Selene from Texas.

 

JULIA RITCHEY: (As Selene) Hey, Jim. I've been building a position in Mambobucks (ph). What's your take?

 

+ What's your take ? : 상대방의 의견, 견해를 묻는 표현

 

THEOPHIN: (As Jim Crypto) I'm not much of a dancer, Selene. If you ask me, Mambobuck's best moves are over, and it's about to cha-cha its way out the party. That's a sell for me. Sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. (As Jim Crypto) One more caller from THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY podcast.

 

ADRIAN MA, HOST:  Hey, Jim, it's Adrian Ma.

 

WAILIN WONG, HOST: And Wailin Wong.

 

THEOPHIN: (As Jim Crypto) A twofer. To what do I owe the pleasure?

 

+ twofer : 하나에 값에 두개를 얻는 것. 일석이조.

+ To what do I owe the pleasure? : 예상치 못한 방문이나 연락을 받았을 때, 일반적으로 반갑게 묻는 표현. 왜 연락을 했는지 궁금할 때 사용되며, 공손한 맥락에서 쓰임

 

MA: Well, we were wondering if you've been following Bitcoin lately.

 

THEOPHIN: (As Jim Crypto) Bitcoin, the OG cryptocurrency? Bitcoin is the it coin right now. Its price has been on a tear the past couple months, and it just hit 45,000 bucks per token.

 

+ on a tear : 난리난, 큰 성공을 거두는, 잘나가는

 

WONG: Yeah, we've heard that's in part because any day now, the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates the stock market, is expected to approve this new kind of financial product called a Spot Bitcoin ETF.

 

THEOPHIN: (As Jim Crypto) That's right. This new bitcoin ETF is a big, big deal - a bullish sign for bitcoin and for cryptocurrencies in general.

 

+ bullish : 희망에 찬, 낙관적인

 

(SOUNDBITE OF UPWARDS SLIDE WHISTLE)

 

WONG: Whoa, whoa there, Jim. Could you slow down and explain what you said there a little bit more?

 

THEOPHIN: (As Jim Crypto, laughter) Sorry, no. I got more calls to take. More crypto money to make. Also, why don't you save it for your own show?

 

(SOUNDBITE OF PHONE CLICKING)

 

MA: Hello? Well, that was rude.

 

WONG: You know, he's right, though, that we do have our own show. I mean, we don't do investment advice, but we can totally explain what all this bitcoin buzz is about.

 

+ buzz : 웅성거림, 소란

 

MA: You know what? You're right. That's a great idea. Today, on our show...

 

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

 

MA: ...WTF is a Bitcoin ETF? According to some crypto enthusiasts, 2024 is going to be a big comeback year for cryptocurrency. And maybe that statement makes you go, wha (ph)?

 

+ enthusiast [ in-ˈthü-zē-ˌast ] : 열광적인 팬, 열렬한 지지자

 

WONG: Yeah, you might be thinking, didn't the cryptocurrency market not too long ago experience a massive crash? And didn't multiple crypto exchange companies like FTX go bankrupt in the past year or so? And also, wasn't its founder Sam Bankman-Fried convicted of fraud? Well, yes, all of the above.

 

+ crash : (자동차 충돌, 항공기 추락)사고, 요란한 소리, 굉음, 추락하다, 충돌하다

+ confict of : ~에 대해 유죄 판결을 내리다

 

ANDY BAEHR: Let's face it, the digital asset industry had a sink full of dirty dishes, mostly in the form of bad behavior by some individuals and firms.

 

MA: Andy Baehr is with CoinDesk Indices, a company that gathers data and research on the cryptocurrency market. And he says despite the lows of the past couple years, he's still a crypto believer. And he's confident that with some better regulation, more education, crypto is going to continue to rally.

 

+ lows : 신저가종목수 (= 각 주식의 가격이 과거 최저주가 이하로 떨어진 주식종목 수)

+ rally : 집회, 결집(단결)하다, 회복되다

 

WONG: And a major catalyst for this rebound is that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to allow investors to trade a new kind of financial product called a spot bitcoin ETF.

 

+ catalyst : 촉매, 기폭제

+ rebound : 다시 튀어나오다, (남을 노리고 한 행동의 나쁜 결과가 자기에게로) 되돌아오다, 다시 튀어나옴, 리바운드

 

MA: Spot bitcoin ETF, I know, is quite the dry jargon sandwich. So let's take that apart and put some sauce on it, shall we? ETF stands for Exchange-Traded Fund. Andy describes it like this.

 

+ jargon : (특정 분야의 전문, 특수) 용어

+ dry jargon sandwich : (비유적 표현) 난해한 용어

 

BAEHR: ETFs are one of the most important financial products available to any kind of investor. They make it easy for individuals, advisers and institutions to buy and trade primarily baskets of securities, like the S&P 500, but also hard-to-store assets, like gold or silver.

 

+ primarily [ prī-ˈmer-ə-lē ]

 

WONG: ETFs were invented about 30 years ago, and you can think of them as sort of an investment portal that allows investors to easily funnel their money into investments that might otherwise be hard to access.

 

+ funnel : 깔때기, (배, 엔진 등에 달린 금속으로된) 굴뚝, (깔대기같이 좁은 공간 속을) 이동하다, 이동시키다

 

MA: Yeah, and it might help to illustrate with a couple examples. So let's say you want to invest in gold. You could buy gold bars, but, you know, unless you're, like, Scrooge McDuck, that might be kind of tricky for most people, right? You got to figure out where to store it, where to get it. Alternatively, you could buy shares of a gold ETF, which is relatively simple because ETFs trade on exchanges just like regular stocks.

 

WONG: ETFs also allow investors to place bets on less tangible things, like the growth or decline of certain industries or regional economies. For instance, if you think Africa's economy is going to grow a lot this year, you could research a bunch of African companies, buy stocks for each of those companies one by one, individually track their performance - yada, yada, yada (ph). Or you could just buy shares in one ETF focused on African companies.

 

MA: So ETFs make it easier for investors to put their money in different things, and that is why crypto believers are really excited about the prospect of this new kind of bitcoin ETF. Andy says it's a sign bitcoin is becoming more mainstream.

 

+ prospect : 가망(가능성), 예상, 탐사하다

 

BAEHR: We should look at this as a continuum of bitcoin moving from super pioneer adopters to early adopters to early mass adoption. And, yes, I think the catalyst of the bitcoin ETF being approved is sort of a major turning point.

 

+ continuum : 연속체

 

MA: Now, worth mentioning - bitcoin ETFs have already been trading in countries like Canada and Germany. But Andy says the U.S. is a huge untapped market.

 

+ untapped : 아직 손대지 않은

 

WONG: When bitcoin first appeared about 15 years ago, the only way to get it was you had to be pretty tech savvy. You had to have your own special digital wallet - all that kind of stuff. And even though nowadays in the U.S. it's relatively easy to buy bitcoin - you can do it through a crypto exchange or through apps like Venmo or Robinhood - Andy says what makes the bitcoin ETF a turning point is who would offer them - not just companies like Grayscale, which specialize in crypto, but also old guard marquee financial firms like Fidelity, BlackRock and Franklin Templeton. And in order to do that, those firms actually have to buy and hold bitcoin.

 

BAEHR: So we think that this just continues to broaden the population of people who will be able to have a small allocation - 2, 3, 4, 5% - to enjoy its diversification benefits and to really place a bet on the future of finance.

 

+ diversification [ də-ˌvər-sə-fə-ˈkā-shən ] : 다양화, 다양성

 

MA: Some financial experts, though, are skeptical, like Henry Hu. Henry teaches corporate and securities law at the University of Texas in Austin, and he's studied ETFs for a long time. He says just because a financial product is government-regulated does not mean it's without risk.

 

HENRY HU: Whenever you have a shiny new object in the investment universe, you know, very often people think of them as magic beans. And, you know, time and again, people have gotten burned.

 

MA: What do you make of the fact that you've got a company like Fidelity or BlackRock saying, like, yeah, let's make this spot bitcoin ETF? Do you feel like that kind of backs up the story some people are seeing in this?

 

+ What do you make of ~ ? : ~는 어떤것 같으세요?

+ back up : 백업하다, 후진시키다, ~을 뒷밤침하다, 지지하다

 

HU: You know, toy stores used to sell pet rocks. It doesn't necessarily mean they think it's a good idea, that it - or that it'll have long-term value, right? It's very hard to come up with the idea of what the intrinsic value of bitcoin is. So what you're left with is you're basically trying to guess what other people are willing to pay for bitcoin. For the ordinary investor, this is a very hazardous game.

 

+ intrinsic : 고유한, 본질적인

+ hazardous [ˈha-zər-dəs] : (특히 건강, 안전에) 위험한

 

WONG: That's a lesson that a lot of bitcoin investors learned the hard way from the recent crypto crash. At its peak in 2021, the price of a bitcoin was about $65,000. Then, in a matter of months, that fell by about 75%, wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars in value.

 

+ wipe out : 넘어지다, 완전히 파괴하다(없애 버리다)

+ in a matter of (시기) : 불과 ~ 만에

 

MA: Yeah, and Henry says that it's worth keeping in mind, even as we see bitcoin's price rebound towards those pandemic-era highs. If the price can shoot up, it can also collapse.

 

WONG: Ooh, cue sound effect.

 

MA: Oh, I think I've hit my daily allowance of sound effects.

 

WONG: (Laughter).

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

 

MA: Special thanks to our voice actors - Julia Ritchey, Kenny Malone and Courtney Theophin, aka Jim Crypto.

(SOUNDBITE OF METAL CLANKING)

 

THEOPHIN: (As Jim Crypto) This episode was produced by Julia Ritchey and Cooper Katz McKim with engineering by Gilly Moon. It was fact-checked by Corey Bridges. Kate Concannon is our editor, and THE INDICATOR is a production of NPR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

 

THEOPHIN: (As Jim Crypto) Buy, sell, cha-ching.