The Securities and Exchange Commission finally yielded to the inevitable on Wednesday, allowing 11 companies to package Bitcoin as shares and letting investors buy stock in the cryptocurrency just as they would shares of Apple or Tesla. Crypto billionaire Michael Saylor marked the moment by saying "Tomorrow Bitcoin Goes Public," and that description sounds about right.
Since the first batches of Bitcoins arrived in 2009—way back when the blockchain spit out 50 Bitcoins every 10 minutes—the cryptocurrency has been treated by many as something disreputable. This has especially been the case in Washington, D.C., and, until recently, on Wall Street, where bankers liked to sneer at it. Now, though, financial giants like BlackRock and Fidelity will be using their new ETFs as a vehicle to distribute Bitcoin to their many clients, who will in turn start including it in retail investors' pension and retirement funds. This will only increase mainstream support for Bitcoin and help turn many remaining detractors into allies.
