authorised participants of winklevoss bitcoin trust have the authority to add more baskets by getting them from winklevoss capital management llc or anyone else who has Bitcoins for sale.
Fixed your post to make it true. Once again
any authorized participant can have the
trusteecreate additional shares for the trust by delivering the quantity of bitcoins needed for a basket of 50,000 shares (10,000 BTC) to the trustee. The trustee is not yet named but for fiduciary reasons would never be the sponsor company. The bitcoins can be obtained from anywhere. The trustee simply ensures the authorized participant has delivered the required number of shares and then authorizes the creation of the new shares. Your claim that the coins must come from the winkle twins is false and contradicted by what is actually written in the S1.
Such an arrangement would never get approval by regulators as it would be seen as a conflict of interests, and detrimental to price discovery. The operation of the trust will be by the trustee not the sponsor company. The trustee (as in any trust) is obligated to follow the terms of the trust and preserve the assets of the trust for the benefit of the owners. If someone delivers bitcoins for a basket, they create a basket and store the bitcoins. If someone delivers a basket of shares they deliver the bitcoins and destroy the shares.
None of this is particularly surprising or novel. You could replace Bitcoin with gold or euro and it would be very similar to existing ETFs. The only thing novel about this ETF is the underlying asset not how it operates. It would make sense that they would use a structures and procedures that regulators are already familiar with to increase the chance of approval. It is a tried and true system, it works and is transparent. This limits any rejection of the proposal to Bitcoin specific reasons.
What the S1 actually says:
On any business day, an Authorized Participant may place an order with the Trustee to create one or more Baskets. Creation and redemption orders will be accepted on “business days” the NASDAQ is open for regular trading. Settlements of such orders requiring receipt or delivery, or confirmation of receipt or delivery, of bitcoins in [ ] will occur on “business days” on which banks in New York are regularly open for business. If such banks or the bitcoins markets are not open for regular business for a full day, such a day will only be a “business day” for settlement purposes if the settlement procedures can be completed by the end of such day. Redemption settlements may be delayed longer than three, but no more than five, business days following the redemption order date. Settlement of redemptions may be delayed only in the instance of administrative or custodial delays in the process of withdrawing bitcoin from the Trust Custody Account, whether by reason of Bitcoin Network delays, mechanical or clerical error or by act of God. Settlement of orders requiring receipt or delivery, or confirmation of receipt or delivery, of Shares will occur, after confirmation of the applicable delivery of bitcoins, on “business days” when the NASDAQ is open for regular trading. Purchase orders must be placed no later than 3:59:59 p.m. on each business day the NASDAQ is open for regular trading. The day on which the Trustee accepts a valid purchase order is the purchase order date.
By placing a purchase order, an Authorized Participant agrees to deposit bitcoins with the Trust. Prior to the delivery of Baskets for a purchase order, the Authorized Participant must also have transferred to the Trustee the non-refundable Transaction Fee due for the purchase order.
Determination of required deposits
The number of whole and fractional bitcoins in the deposit required for a Basket (“Creation Basket Deposit”) is determined by dividing the number of bitcoins held by the Trust by the number of Baskets outstanding, as adjusted for the number of whole and fractional bitcoins constituting estimated accrued but unpaid fees and expenses of the Trust. Fractions of a bitcoin smaller than 0.00000001 (such hundred-millionth of a bitcoin being known as a “Satoshi”) which are included in the Creation Basket Deposit amount are disregarded in the foregoing calculation. All questions as to the composition of a Creation Basket Deposit will be conclusively determined by the Trustee. The Trustee’s determination of the Creation Basket Deposit shall be final and binding on all persons interested in the Trust.
Delivery of required deposits
An Authorized Participant who places a purchase order is responsible for depositing into its Authorized Participant Custody Account the required Creation Basket Deposit by the third business day in New York, New York following the purchase order date. Bitcoins deposited by an Authorized Participant into its Authorized Participant Custody Account will be available for further transfer upon the completion of the Trust’s Confirmation Protocol. Under the Confirmation Protocol, the Trustee must wait until the deposit transaction has been confirmed by six blocks before considering the deposit completed. The confirmation process should take between thirty minutes and one hour depending upon the speed with which bitcoin miners add new blocks to the public Blockchain. See “Cryptographic Security Used in the Bitcoin Network—Double-Spending and the Bitcoin Network Confirmation System,” above. An Authorized Participant shall not be deemed to have fulfilled its deposit requirement until the completion of the confirmation protocol.
Upon receipt and confirmation of the full Creation Basket Deposit into the Authorized Participant Custody Account, the Trustee, after receiving appropriate instructions from the Authorized Participant, will transfer on the third business day following the purchase order date the bitcoins deposit amount from the Authorized Participant Custody Account to the Trust Custody Account. The Trustee will transfer such bitcoins either to a temporary digital wallet (for immediate redistribution after the Confirmation Protocol) or directly to one or more digital wallets in cold storage.
Following the receipt and confirmation of the full Creation Basket Deposit into the Trust Custody Account, the Trustee will direct DTC to credit the number of Baskets ordered to the Authorized Participant’s DTC account. The expense and risk of delivery, ownership and safekeeping of bitcoins, until such bitcoins have been received by the Trust in the Trust Custody Account, shall be borne solely by the Authorized Participant.
The Trustee may accept delivery of bitcoins by such other means as the Sponsor, from time to time, may determine to be acceptable for the Trust, provided that the same is disclosed in a prospectus relating to the Trust filed with the SEC pursuant to Rule 424 under the Securities Act. If bitcoins are to be delivered other than as described above, the Sponsor is authorized to establish such procedures and to appoint such custodians and establish such custody accounts in addition to those described in this prospectus, as the Sponsor determines to be desirable. The Trustee will use commercially reasonable efforts to complete the transfer of bitcoins to the Trust Custody Account prior to the time by which the Trustee is to credit the Basket to the Authorized Participant’s DTC account.