When you enter a company’s website, perhaps to buy a product, it is common to receive a pop-up message that asks you to enter your email address to receive promotional materials. The options presented to you in this pop-up may read something akin to “I like to stay informed,” and “I like to be left out.” However, if the website is attempting to make you feel bad about declining to provide your personal information, then you may have experienced a dark pattern.
A recurring joke in the TV series Arrested Development is that a real estate mogul beset by hard financial times refrains to his son, “there’s always money in the [family-owned] banana stand.” Every time he does, the son—who has taken over the family real estate empire—expresses exasperation, as a boardwalk shop selling frozen bananas is obviously no cure for the family’s financial woes. In an act of defiance, the son eventually burns the banana stand down. Enraged, the real estate mogul explains that there was literally $250,000 in cash lining its walls. The stockholder franchise is Delaware’s banana stand.
The issue of Bitcoin exchange-traded products (ETPs) is not new, but it has only recently surged into the public consciousness with the SEC’s reluctant approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January 2024. However, the general discourse surrounding these novel financial products is mixed: to some, they pose a threat to market stability and open a door for hefty investor losses; to others, they represent a crucial step in the greater legitimization of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as viable assets.
