Topic: Winklevoss ETF update, what does this mean? - page 7. (Read 9515 times)

Huh interesting. I really am anxious for them to get things going! I really don't grasp the whole concept and it puzzles me that no one even knows when/if(!!!) this thing is going to start. It may very well be the exact investment vehicle the big money needs, but we shouldn't put all our hope in it. I'm afraid that people overestimate its influence.

Maybe (which I doubt, especially if I try to track the overall daily buy/sell volume).  Even if there's some demand "to maintain the current price point", it's not enough to maintain growth. For an ETF, capital appreciation is a top priority objective. At the moment, keeping Bitcoin as an asset in a large investment portfolio for a manager is like walking on a thin ice. But who knows what will happen this year, it's just started!   

vote in company matters??

the shares are not ownership of any company.. they are shares of a bitcoin. thepoint of the trust is this..

imagine it as a office.. that trades shares. to be a dealer/salesmen in the office you have to own baskets of bitcoins, and then you can manage the ownership of the shares of the bitcoin between your customers. you do not have any voting rights of the office. you are just sat in the office managing the share transaction information of the buys and sells of your basket(s)

Realized they invested into something that isn't an investment and are trying to cashout early.

I am not saying that you are wrong, but why would they need to have the gold to track the price?
If I understand, what you are trying to say, then they have to buy and sell it them self to see the price. Couldn't they just look it up else where?

It means nothing. 

It's all bullshite.

I am confident because I know how the system works. You obviously do not, so you engage in groundless speculations.


I am talking about the mathematics of supply and demand.


Those are groundless speculations. The only facts we know for sure is that the US gold reserves have not be audited for a very long time. Saying that the gold isn't there is a groundless speculation, just like saying that the gold is there. We don't know which is the case, because of the lack of audit.


This, however, is pure bullshit. If the GLD custodian wasn't buying and selling the gold it claims to buy and sell, GLD wouldn't have been able to track the gold price. And in order to sell gold, you must have it. Plus, GLD regularly (daily or weekly, don't remember) publishes the serial numbers of all the gold bars in their custody.

Only a total ignoramus can claim that GLD does not have the gold it claims to have.


Germany recently inspected its holdings at the NY Fed, was satisfied by what it saw, and decided not to press for repatriation of its gold.


Why not? Gold is fungible. Germany owns gold there, not pieces of art.


And some say this is total bullshit. Venezuela successfully repatriated all its gold and it is not exactly a friend of the USA. The Netherlands recently successfully repatriated all its its gold. Apparently, the gold was there.


This is bullshit spewed by the gold promoters. Don't believe them, or you'll lose money. There are much more efficient ways of manipulating the currency markets.


Except a few crazies, nobody cares about the gold price. That the "recovery" is fake is obvious from the falling labor force, the stagnating household income, and a zillion of other things. The gold price is falling not because of some dark conspiracy but because the dollar is going up. (Check the gold price in Russian rubles or Japanese yen.) And the dollar is going up because the global economy has started falling apart at the periphery and capital is rushing into the perceived safe haven, which is the world reserve currency.


Nonsense.

There's demand, enough to maintain the current price point.

Bitcoin has no real value in the short term. In contrast to govt. papers, it has value while there's demand and today we can see no real demand.

good step concerning the current price

1. sell company shares for fiat
2. convert fiat to btc
3. wait for rise
4. sell btc for fiat
5. announce +10 000% company value rise
6. sell shares more expensively

They don't run it themselves and pay someone for the security probably.

You're very confident.  But we're talking about different things
You're talking about how the system works.
I'm talking about fraud by people in positions of power over the system.

More than a couple economists and knowledgeable commentators have proposed that both Fort Knox and the NY Fed's vault are empty of gold and so GLD's gold is being sold off to keep the price of gold low.

Germany recently demanded we give them back the gold they had left in the NY Fed's vault for safe keeping.  The US said it would take years to give it back (why?) and only shipped back a tiny percent.  But the gold they shipped back wasn't the old bars the Germans had deposited, it was new bars.  Why the change?  Some say Germany's old bars have already been sold off, so they had to rush out and buy a little new gold.

Why sell off the gold?  The Fed and the US Treasury know that the price of gold is the canary in the mine.  If it's price goes up, everyone will know the dollar is in trouble.  They MUST keep the price low to keep everyone assured that the "recovery" is proceeding.  That's mostly accomplished with naked shorting of gold on the future's market, but they have to have enough physical gold available to meet demand for the scheme to work, hence they steal from GLD's vault.


Obviously the bitcoin in COIN doesn't provide the same incentive, nor would it have the same level of powerful interests.  So it's probably safe.  I was just wondering out loud.

The prospectus says that they will be kept in cold storage (printed wallets stored in vaults).


You, personally, almost certainly cannot, but it is possible, yes. In fact, I know of at least one case when it was done.

It will be the same with this ETF. It would be possible to exchange ETF shares for bitcoins, but most people won't be able to afford it, because it will be doable only in multiples of 50.000 shares.

Read the prospectus.


This is not very clear from the prospectus. On the one hand, there is explicit language that there will be no insurance of the bitcoins. But maybe the meaning is that the bitcoins are not insured the way deposits are insured by the FDIC. On the other hand, there is language that the custodian would take whatever insurance means he deems appropriate and the terms may change.


This statement suggests that you have no clue how GLD tracks the price of gold.


Not really. It just means that it transfers ownership of the bitcoins owned by the twins to current holders of US dollars - once. You can turn the argument on its head and say that it is "bad" because it is equivalent to the twins selling their bitcoins. But it would be just as incorrect.

You must always keep in mind how a tracking ETF works. If the demand for shares is larger than the demand for bitcoins, the ETF custodian creates ETF shares out of nothing and sells them to the public. Then he uses the money from the sale to buy bitcoins. This drops the price of the shares (increased supply) and ups the demand for bitcoins (increased demand), bringing the two in equilibrium again.

The same procedure works in the other direction. If people start buying bitcoins faster than the ETF shares, the custodian sells some bitcoins and uses the money to buy back ETF shares and to destroy them. This increases the supply of bitcoins (putting a downward pressure on their price) and increases the demand for the ETF shares (putting an upward pressure on their price), bringing the two in equilibrium.

Note that it doesn't matter whether the price of bitcoins is going up, down or sideways. All that matters is the difference in demand between bitcoins and ETF shares. By creating and destroying shares and buying and selling bitcoins, the ETF custodian makes sure that the prices of the two are in sync - i.e., the ETF is doing its job of tracking the bitcoin price.

Of course, this mechanism will break down if the custodian has no bitcoins. Exactly the same logic applies to the gold tracking ETF.


An ETF is not a stock. Owning shares of it does not let you vote on how it is run.

Thanks that clears it up, i dont know much about EFT but sort of thought it wouldnt be shares in the company.

At the risk of stating the obvious, nobody. The company administering the ETF is not publicly traded, and shares in the ETF are not shares in the company.

If a 'whale' was to buy 300,000 btc = 30 blocks and put this into the winklevoss EFT,
Who would then hold the majority vote in company matters?

Or would it just be smarter for them to set up their own EFT, that would cost a lot in itself, the winklevoss twin have spent a packet on setting up there's.

always enjoy these threads. usually very little new info, but entertaining discussion aplenty.

if they ever do actually open this thing and sell shares publicly, it will be very interesting to watch. good for the price, bad? stable, crazy rocket? no idea. but it'll be a fun show.

I remember reading several months ago that it was facing delays, so I would say it is probably somewhat behind schedule (especially considering this is the first news regarding this in months).

Since this is the first ETF they are starting it will take a little bit longer then what companies like Vanguard take to start a new ETF

You can't set up any ETF overnight. It's probably right on schedule.

This thing has dragged on for over 1.5 years.......Not sure when it will ever see the light of day.