Bitcoin (BTC) Critic Peter Schiff Questions the Impact of Spot ETFs on the Market

Economist and staunch Bitcoin BTC/USD critic Peter Schiff traded his guns on spot ETFs associated with the digital asset yet again.

Prolific Economist and gold enthusiast Peter Schiff has once again taken aim at spot ETFs linked to Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), questioning their impact on the digital asset's price movement.

What Happened: On Tuesday, Schiff took to Meta (NASDAQ:META) Platforms' X, a service formerly known as Twitter, to highlight that despite 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs buying the asset, Bitcoin has traded sideways for over three months.

"The current price is 11% below the March high. If ETF buyers are buying, what is causing sell pressure on Bitcoin? What happens when ETF buyers get tired of waiting and become sellers too?" he questioned.

Well-known cryptocurrency analyst James Van Straten countered Schiff's arguments by linking the ongoing downturn in Bitcoin market to basis trading, a market-neutral strategy that uses the difference between the spot price and the futures contract price of an asset.

He further explained that Bitcoin's average realized price was in the $50,000 zone, higher than what it was during ETF launch. "ETF buyers are in healthy profit," Van Straten asserted.

Schiff's comments come just a week after he warned that reliance on institutional ETF buying to drive up Bitcoin prices could lead to market instability.

Prior to this, he used the excitement around Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) spot ETF approvals to question the future of Bitcoin, suggesting that any funds used to buy new Ether ETFs would likely come from existing Bitcoin ETFs.