Topic: Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust on Bloomberg - page 4. (Read 10995 times)

Yes, I do know; in fact, I borrowed against my 401k a couple of months ago but each payment back into $US denominate funds goes against the Bitcoin grain.

Plenty of folks are rich enough *if* they include their retirement funds.  As an alternative, paying the penalty and taxes to withdraw retirement funds prematurely is a pretty painful way to get into Bitcoin but with the kind of potential it could very well be worth it -- one does not need to be rich enough to use this approach just committed/brave.

I left a voice message with the Equity Institutional person directly and an awaiting a callback.  They are a trust company.  They can hold things, e.g. Bitcoins, in trust for folks.

SecondMarket is apparently partnering with Equity Institutional (and others) to connect Bitcoin investors with trust companies.  I'm sure SecondMarket will want a fee for making this connection but pretty quickly folks will find their own way to the trust companies.

This.

I know the moment this is approved (assuming it will be) I will be getting some in my 401k.

secondmarket is only open to rich people tho. Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust  would be open to all.

what is this equityinstitutional.com

i thought secondmarket.com was going to handle the bitcoins on their own.

https://www.secondmarket.com/ *but* I haven't actually transacted with them yet; I'll report how it goes.  All I have done so far is just signed up and exchanged a couple of emails.  The partner they are connecting me with is Equity Institutional http://www.equityinstitutional.com/ (formerly Sterling Trust whom I contacted a while ago but at least at that time they weren't touching Bitcoin yet).

Yes you have an income of at least $200K or $1 million net worth without your house(s) being counted. You have be an accredited investor by the SEC, and if you have $1 million net worth in bitcoins it is almost impossible or they are just giving some people I know a really hard time. That is the only way you can buy bitcoins trust shares using second market.

The ETF will add liquidity and will allow people to invest the capital necessary to get things like migrant worker payment systems in place and hopefully a true merchant processing competitor.
It will also allow people to short bitcoin in a large way which will be really interesting.  When you trade commodities there are differences between physical and financial.   Many times the financial delivery exceeds the actual physical delivery capacity.
ie.   If someone had short sold to me millions of barrels of oil for march delivery, I can demand physical delivery at cushing.   If I do not trade out of it in the three days before expiration, I can schedule with the seller when he must deliver.   This gives you spikes in the spot market sometimes but generally people can settle on the financial contract.     
Now think this about this.   If some smart guys said "bitcoin is BS, let's bust it" (you know kind of like Soros did to the pound) and they shorted TONS of bitcoin, how would they deliver if a large group of miners/hoarders refused to sell their stored coins.   What would happen to the spot market in bitcoin?  Because the great thing about ETFs (and later futures) is that people can financially sell more than the entire market size.   But with bitcoin, you cannot deliver what is not there.   Those are the days I look forward too, when the shorts get squeezed for the first few times because they are used to shorting other "commodities/currencies" that they can always hedge out of.

Only if your net worth is quite high.

really?  link?

There's no need to wait; SecondMarket can get IRA into Bitcoin through partners now.

This ETF, if approved, will be the thing that takes bitcoin to the next level.

It's amazing how many people here don't get that. They don't like the Winklevoss twins because they saw that movie and think they are money-grubbing assholes. But they Winklevoss twins are smart and they get it.

This ETF will take bitcoin's value from the hundreds to the thousands overnight. Possibly even tens of thousands.

For most of us, buying the real thing directly is better that buying shares in an ETF.

But this opens up bitcoin to everyone who isn't sophisticated enough or doesn't have the time to go through all the steps to open up an account on a exchange, wire money to a foreign country, and manage their own wallet.

This lets your grandmother invest in bitcoin.

My mother has been reading about bitcoin in the news and she has repeatedly asked how she can buy some. I basically just tell her that I will sell her some when I see her at Thanksgiving. Her friends have been e-mailing me too, asking if they should invest in bitcoin and how they can buy them.

This ETF would let them invest much more easily than it is now and even more importantly it would allow the trillions in retirement fund accounts to invest in bitcoin!

As someone said earlier, most American families do not have the liquid cash to go out and buy bitcoins. But many of them do have 401ks and IRAs which could invest in this ETF.

The price should also stabilize a bit as the size of the market grows a couple of orders of magnitude. Bitcoin will also be finally seen as legitimate to institutional investors and that should help it stabilize too.

This ETF is a wonderful thing for bitcoin.

They're likely to end up having more than they have now.  That might be the number one target in the world for an electronic heist, especially considering the potential for actually getting away with it.

it is in the regulatory filing, they don't exactly have a choice...

The twins has owned 1% of Bitcoin for years, without screwing up. I don't think they'll start now

Usually, having a "good" sponsor is important because most ETF sponsors are experienced in the field.  This new sponsor entity has never done this kind of work, so to the extent that's a plus for an EFT, this entity lacks it.  However, even entities experienced in this kind of instrument have never done a Bitcoin EFT, so the whole project is terra incognita, even to the "Big Boys." 

I think it can and should be treated (at least by the stodgy fund guys) as what it is, a high-risk, high-yield investment opportunity, and given the proper place in a portfolio based on that.  The fund is higher risk than BTC itself, IMO, because of the not insubstantial risk of the Winklevoss twins or their people themselves somehow screwing up, losing the keys, or getting hacked, because their trove of coin is going to be a fat, juicy target.

For ownership I know that.

What's the use for a sponsor though? From the wording I assumed a sponsor was required to show you could find another entity which backs you up.

They're trying to become Billionaires

They'll make many of us wealthy in the process if the ETF gets approved

I saw the twins speak at the San Jose conference.  

They get it.  They grok Bitcoin, from its reasons for existing to the massive implications its existence entails.

They didn't need to be there talking to a room of pimply crypto-uber-nerds, but they are true believers and did so anyway.

They are with us, not against us.  Remember, these two Harvard grads are very smart, and rich, and invented Facebook.

They could have been in Aspen or Gstaad instead, enjoying their massive wealth.  Instead, they chose to join the revolution.

I respect that.

One of the primary purposes of a corporation is to have a separate legal personality, so a corporation, even one you control, has a separate legal existence.  Do the paperwork right and it can even take the fall for you in times of legal or financial trouble.

Did anyone read the SEC filing? Check the prospectus summary. The sponsor of the trust is a company founded in May 2013 that is wholly owned by the Winkeloss twins. Funny how this works, you need a sponsor to start a trust but you can just start another company to do the sponsoring. Seem really useful ...