Topic: Everything you wanted to know about Grayscale BTC Trust but were afraid to ask! - page 13. (Read 16372 times)

I am not sure if I would characterize the "ability to get exposure" to GBTC shares as a "work around" merely because you are get some of them - because the GBTC shares are on the market and they are freely traded on the market, so the mere fact that you are getting access to such shares "on the market" does not likely have much of anything to do with the inability to buy shares through the official GBTC managers/website.

You are describing part of the whole contention in regards to why people who hold GBTC shares are complaining that the price of the GBTC shares are not returning to a price that is closer to NAV.... but that still has never meant that the GBTC shares have not been available through the market.. especially after those shares go through their initial 6 month period of being locked up.. so it is my understanding that in the beginning of getting GBTC shares through Greyscale, they were not able to be sold for 6 months (and I recall - or believe that I recall) that in the first year or so (in 2014 or so) that they were not able to be sold or traded on the free market for 12 months.. but that 12 month period got reduced to 6 months, and those kinds of "locked-up" shares are not really available anymore since none of the shares are newly issued by the Greyscale trust for quite a long period of time, so all of the outstanding shares are able to be traded on the free market - and sure the ways that they are "able to be traded" likely has to go through authorized exchanges.  It is not like any of us normies are able to buy GBTC shares and then hold them in our own private digital "crypto" wallet or put them in our home safe.

You know I noticed this too. Some 401ks have the ability to do a “Personal Choice” investment option. Transamerica has is, you link that investment option to a Charles Schwab account and that is the work around if you have a Trans 401k but I’m not sure if this option is available in other 401ks.

By the way, I just listened to another interview with Sonnenshein on The Wolf of All Streets podcast (It was published today, and it was about 40 minutes in length), and surely, you can see that there are possibilities to still have substantive discussions, and sure maybe arguments can be made that the interviewer (Scott Melker) was not combative enough and did not ask enough "tough questions," yet I was still able to get some perspectives from Sonnenshein from the Wolf Of All Streets podcast that I could not (and did not) get from the Peter McCormack interview.. and which one was better?  Either or were they just "different."

I would argue that they were just different, and it is up to each of us to gather as much information as we might feel that we need in order to determine if we need to know more or "look into" certain angles more, or maybe sometimes, we are not very attached towards taking a side in which there are disputes but also various spins and various potentially differing perspectives that may or may not mean that every single person is a scammer, even if s/he might be taking a different perspective towards a matter (including what his/her role is) in the matter and what s/he might be willing to "publicly" share at any given point in time.. or based on which questions are presented and how those questions are presented.

For sure, even though I consider McCormack to have had gone a bit too extreme and a bit too confrontational, there can be quite a bit of a refreshing angle to see at least some kind of pushback and "tough questions" as compared to the times in which some of the mainstream interviews will hardly challenge at all... .. so in that sense, mostly the podcast format does seem to lend to better interviews as compared to those interviews that ONLY last for 5-10 minutes, and also, McCormack did seem to be on better grounds because Sonnenshein had asked for the interview (even though Sonnenshein had to spin the matter as if McCormack had asked for the interview, which McCormack made very clear that Sonnenshein had asked for the interview). 

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Thank You.

ok

i understand your prospective

i just found it funny how sonnenschien was saying 'we do absolute full due diligence on "source of funds" ' and the backs off and says things that sound like 'nothing to do with me' 'i am not part of it', 'i dont know what genesis done' in regards to funds grayscale received and earned 2% commission from

which is where i feel mcCormack was pushing sonnenschien.. due to sonnenschien being sister company to genesis so has absolute "data sharing" access to funding sources(due diligence) as does their other sister company chain analysis. yet sonnenschien wants to plead ignorant 'nothing to do with me'.. but then says how their due diligence is thorough

and then says their boss(silbert) is "visionary", how silbert has all these companies he masterminded.. but then says how silbert knows nothing/was blind to the whole schemes..
it just seemed to be empty ping-pong(table tennis) answers..
changing from his boss being well involved and inspiring to a uninvolved non entity..
 
just seems like he wasnt answering questions and just pumping some publicity of ass kissing his boss with positive words and avoiding mentioning the negative

that said.. on sonnenscheins side. the interview was a casual meetup chat. not a legal deposition or court ordered witness statement. thus sonnenschein had no legal duty to say anything.

however by acting like a evasive guy saying triggering stuff like "i feel sorry" but then "whats unethical" followed by 'silbert is a visionary' then 'silbert said nothing did nothing' (more ping pong) i can see why mccormack picked up on the ping pong games and tried to drill harder to get a straight answer

i found it good that mccormack did push and not just let such ping pong publicity stuff just get said unquestioned

The punchline seems to be that I do not feel strongly enough to either battle or to research further in order to be motivated to battle, and I guess another part I was largely just wanting to mention my disagreement because I did not want my having had sent a merit to be confused with agreement, but I do not feel that strongly about any of the matter because I largely said my perspective and you said your perspective and our perspectives differed on each of the points... but it is not really anything that I believe is worth arguing about...

Of course, there is quite a bit of tension in the space involving various lawsuits and even the manipulations in the past 2-3 years that were going on in regards to the anticipations that GBTC would return to less of a discount with the passage of time, but those ended up losing bets that seemed to have had been pretty BIG.  I am not going to proclaim to understand all of the dynamics of the various players or even wanting to study the situation any more than I get through my regular superficial looking at these matters... including that I don't advise people to invest into those kinds of products, but I can see why people would do it, especially historically when GBTC was one of the ONLY ways that some of the BIGGER investors could get exposure to BTC through their accredited accounts or even US Govt approved retirement accounts such as 401ks, through certified investment advisors or even pension funds that might have gotten some exposure to BTC through GBTC from about 2014 to 2019 or so when GBTC was the ONLY such BTC exposure related product.

I thought that McCormack was a bit overly confrontational, and of course, Sonnenshein had been a public spokesperson for Grayscale for quite awhile including being amongst the most senior of employees with the company.

Even if we might consider Greyscale is not really putting all their efforts into trying to win a lawsuit to get their fund converted to a ETF, they seem to have had been making good arguments regarding their seemingly disparate treatment in not getting approved, and the mere assertion that GBTC is not suffiicently aligned iwth NAV or that there were attempts to manipulate GBTC does not seem to be enough to deny such an ETF.. but whatever.. I don't really care because I am not going to read all of the legal arguments back and forth or try to figure out how to argue Grayscale's case better or to suggest that they Government is correct in their ongoing denial of an ETF.. I don't really care that much, and it seems that at some point they are either going to be forced into approving Grayscale as an ETF.. or they will give the ETF to one of Grayscale's competitors such as JP Morgan or Blackrock or some other nonsense in which governments just love to take sides and to fuck around with the market in ways that are not easy to be able to prove in court or to predict, even if you (Franky1) have a theory about the SEC being sufficiently justified in not approving their ETF application.

In other words, I don't really have a problem with anything that you are saying, and I will just sit out the matter and watch and I don't really want to study it anymore than I happen to have some superficial ideas on the topic.

(not debating or wanting to fight this out)

out of interest which bits dont you agree with, just to understand.. in case im missing something

I don't really agree with you on either of those points, but I appreciate your fairly clearly providing your perspective on each of the two topics....

here is the thing
when grayscale says its got a trust..
meaning it tries to separate its corporation liability away from ownership of the trust(the purpose of a trust). and saying the trust is "owned/benefits" by its share holders
this means grayscale should be more transparent to the holders
(^ mccormack see's things from this side ^)

reality is that. (v sonnenscheins prospective v)
grayscale own the trust and the coin and its not actually the share holders owning the coin in the trust, thus they dont want to disclose things which can hurt their business if revealed

which is why mccormick was pressing sonnenschein for more details in the end. as he was siding with the view of how things are affecting share holders (un)informed investment.. rather then siding with how things can affect grayscale

mccormack was asking from the side of consumer/user protection. sonnenschein was answering from the side of corporate protection

investors should be informed about what they are getting into. and anyone denying disclosure seems shady, anyone shouting the utopian best case, while avoiding explaining the real events seems shady
as soon as sonnenschein said "silbert is a visionary" it really shown sonnenschein was just positive spinning everything and trying to say silbert didnt get involved but he is super-god work-husband and everyone should not speak ill of him denying that silbert ever was informed/knew about genesis things and avoiding answering if silbert ever talked about risks with sonnenschien
kinda bad business if there are known risks but parent company doesnt inform its different teams or mitigate that risk

---

as for the SEC thing..
if i was a regulator seeing an application of a ETF that "promises" to trace the bitcoin price.. yet. right now in its private OTC offering its NAV has NEVER pegged bitcoin 1:0.001.. i too would not want to approve such an offering that is already breaking its peg promise of exposure to bitcoin at a trace rate

I did not watch the video, but I listened to it a day or two prior to your post, Daltonik.... and it would be good to note, that McCormack was a bit combative in his interview, and at first, I was fine with it, but towards the end it became a bit more and more uncomfortable because McCormack was increasingly being more direct in his assertion that Sonnenshein was lying.  At first, McCormick was just framing it as public relations' spin, but McCormack became more and more accusatory in terms of suggesting that Sonneshein knows more than what he is saying and that Sonnenshein is being disingenuine in the way that he is spinning matters and refusing to share some internal details.

Personally, I do think McCormack might have gone overboard because especially Grayscale has the lawsuit against the SEC and also some somewhat combative disputes with Gemini.. through the Genesis sister company.. and McCormack was largely accusing Sonnenshein of being too protective of Barry Silbert.. and even several times proclaiming that part of the problem is their pursuit of money and getting involved in shitcoins too.. .. but whatever.. some of this will hopefully end up being ironed out in the coming months.. and surely there is the SEC hearing that is about to happen and doubtful that Grayscale will win that (oh and Peter suggests that they are not even really trying to fight to get an ETF.. they are just going through the motions... blah blah blah.. because they like the fees that they continue to earn)... and then also, there is the tentative settlement between Genesis and Gemini (and other Genesis creditors) in connection with the forced Bankruptcy filing..... so we still have to see how those matters are going to be worked out in the coming months.. or perhaps dragging out longer.. I believe that there are some ways that resolution could come easier with some of the bankruptcy "holes" if the BTC price goes shooting up.. but of course, there are even complications with the SEC filings against Gemini and Genesis regarding the "earn" products that the SEC claims should not have had been even had been being offered without proper registration with the SEC.. and probably inadequate disclosures, too.. even presuming that any of the clients using those products might not have been eligible investors... and surely some of the bitcoin and crypto proponents find some of the security regulation requirements in regards to "eligible investors" to be way too patronizing for current times, which likely many of us likely have mixed views in regards to how restrictive is restrictive enough to "protect" consumers while at the same time not prohibiting normies from being able to invest or to make some of their own choices regarding their investment choices without having to ask permission to be scammed.

Michael Sonnenshein gave a rather lengthy interview to Peter McCormack in the podcast "What Bitcoin Did" Where he talks about the formation and development of Grayscale, his role in it, and also concerns the serious problems that Grayscale is currently experiencing. For example, GBTC is trading below its NAV value around a record low of 45%. And since GBTC holders cannot buy back their shares for the underlying asset, they have to sell their shares on the open market and take on this discount, and those who are not forced to sell feel actually trapped. Sonnenshein believes that if the GBTC fund were converted into an ETF, there would no longer be a discount or premium, but an arbitration mechanism would be built in, which would allow $2 billion to return to investors' pockets, since, as he believes, the GBTC fund would recover to the value of NAV.
He also touched upon the issues of the relationship of subsidiaries with DCG and the bankruptcy of Genesis.

The less time is left before the Grayscale vs SEC court hearing, the more often Sonnenschein participates in various interviews, in this, for example, he talks in some detail about the mechanism of the GBTC fund and the benefits for investors when converting it into a spot ETF. He was also very surprised by the fact that by refusing to convert, the SEC actually refused to protect investors.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DNlQEp2etg   Audio version: https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/grayscale-the-sec-genesis  https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cud2hhdGJpdGNvaW5kaWQuY29tL3BvZGNhc3Q_Zm9ybWF0PXJzcw?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahgKEwio4u-LubX9AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQjgQ

regulators are not politicians put in place to protect the wealth of citizens

regulators are ex bankers promoted to supervisor roles to protect banks and do a bit of policing of bank customers that can harm a banks reputation(cause bank runs if banks are fined or sent to court)

regulators dont want newbie businesses attaining the same competitive status as banks that offer pension plans so ofcourse the first ETF is not going to be managed by some company that only existed under a decade ago.. they want the wall street elite to offer the first ETF. is just the regulators want to have the rules (walls" in place to ensure the elite banks still have a role to play in the evolving finance sector

It is an odd position where they make more money with a shitty product that loses its investors money but claim to be trying to change said product to make less money. Simultaneously, the organization setup to protect investors from bad investment products are blocking conversion of the fund, which would benefit investors and in effect punish the issuer. It all seems backwards to the point something is fishy. 

They are probably using a lot of those daily 33 BTC to bribe someone at the SC not to have the ETF approved!
This would put their lucrative business model immediately out of the market.
I know they pretend they are pushing for an ETF conversion, but who really want to kill their own golden goose?

point was
they have not been adding coin to their trust(not investing since spring 2021).. they have been taking coin out and only taking coin out since spring 2021

if i seen bitcoins cheap opportunity in winter 2022 i would have been on a buying spree(i have a hoard from 2012-    and even i bought more in 2022 even though i am financially sustainable i couldnt turn a good opportunity down compared to 2021 prices)

when a business is syphoning out (taking its fees) and not investing. and now saying it needs to do stuff to take out another 20% (way above its 2%) its not a good sign

this winter should be investing in and not divesting out

if they were happy to buy more coins in jan-feb 2021 at $30k-$50k
but said no to opportunities of $<$20k..

it shows they are not on a healthy standing

Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein gave an interview to yahoo finance where he shared his opinion about the development of the crypto market in 2023, about the upcoming court hearings in the case of Grayscale against the SEC and the possible sale of 20% of shares in accordance with plan B, which, however, he considers the worst way out.. He also expressed his opinion about discounted sales of positions in crypto trusts that DCG started, well, as an opinion, he just shared what is already known to the public and said that this is not the business for which he is responsible. Michael Sonnenshein also shared how Grayscale operates in the crypto winter and talked about meeting with congressmen and increasing Washington's involvement and support in cryptography and the adoption of some laws in 2023 to regulate centralized intermediaries.

Actually, we didn't hear anything new, just Michael Sonnenshein commented on current events and talked mainly about regulation in the field of crypto, but the most important thing is that he finally sees an understanding of finding solutions to the problems of the crypto market on the part of both chambers of Congress

https://finance.yahoo.com/video/grayscale-ceo-talks-crypto-regulation-173013258.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GonIQD9Xp_Q

The straight blue line is declining at a 34 daily BTC, or the daily 2% on the total amount of the AUM in bitcoin.
Daily means on the Mondays they are getting three times the amount…

well upto ~feb/march 2021 grayscale were accumulating coin into the trust
but since then they have been reducing how much coin is in the trusts
https://www.coinglass.com/Grayscale#Holdings (blue background)
the straight downward slope from spring 2021 is the 2% management fee per year but nibbled out of the trust at a smaller daily rate that totals the yearly amount of 2% removed

we just have to see if they do do the "buy back scheme" to allow them to bite a huge 20% chunk out of the trust

Something big must be happening if DCG (mother)  is in bad financial situation while Grayscale (daughter) is cashing in 30 BTC in daily management fees doing basically nothing.