will people stop hyping up secondmarkets stupid exchanges.
the main exchanges secondmarket is involved in (bitcoin trust, winklevoss and others) are all investment companies selling pretty much shares of their company. they wont have bitcoin wallet withdrawals. its is purely a betting game using the real bitcoin price.. but copying it over to their database and then people gamble on its rise and fall, without actual bitcoins changing hands.
winklevoss for instance they are using their business value (based on the bitcoins holding) as a price value of their shares. so if bitcoins drop. the holdings are worth less, which means the business value drops. and thus the share price of the company drops.
anyone investing in winklevoss and other markets like this are not purchasing actual bitcoins which they withdraw.
so please stop highlighting this stupid effort of FIAT lovers pretending to be involved with the bitcoin market. the day trading on these stupid exchanges will not affect actual buys and sells on bitcoin exchanges.
-rant over-
A Bitcoin ETF structured similarly to the GLD exchange traded fund
would swap bitcoins for ETF-shares with its authorized participants, and thus influence the market price of bitcoin. For example, if the net-asset value of the fund is less than the BTC ETF price on (say) the NASDAQ, then an authorized participant will sell the ETF short while purchasing bitcoins in the open market. They will then swap the bitcoin for newly-issued shares in the ETF, cover their short position, and pocket the arbitrage profit.
To put it more simply:
Assume:
- BTC price on BitStamp = $1000
- 1 ETF share is equal to 1 BTC
- The ETF is trading for $1050 on NASDQ
I would simultaneously short the ETF (giving me $1050) and purchase 1 BTC from BitStamp (costing me $1000). I then take my bitcoin to the ETF Fund Manager and say "I want to swap this bitcoin for 1 share" and he is obligated to issue me a share in exchange for my bitcoin. I then take that share and return it to the person who I borrowed it from in order to short it. So now I'm up $50.
Of course, the fund doesn't want to deal with any old Joe-blow and a couple BTC here and there, so they only allow "authorized participants" to arbitrage like this, and only in "baskets" of say 100 BTC or so.
DrGregMalhauser's thread covers this in great details:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/winkelvoss-etp-could-become-the-pricing-mechanism-for-btc-252330