It has been announced that the Winklevoss twins have filed to sell a little over 20 million shares across the NASDAQ exchange – shares of the two brothers’ Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust. Each of the shares represents an interest in the aforementioned trust, which as most of you will now is the bitcoin exchange traded fund that the two brothers a while back.
A quick scan through the prospectus reveals the following listed as the “Trust Objective” (essentially what it offers potential investors) as being as follows:
The investment objective of the Trust is for the Shares to reflect the performance of the value of a bitcoin as represented by Winkdex, less the Trust’s expenses. The Shares are intended to constitute a cost-effective and convenient means of gaining investment exposure to bitcoins. A substantial direct investment in bitcoins may require expensive and sometimes complicated arrangements in connection with the acquisition, security and safekeeping of the bitcoins and may involve the payment of substantial fees to acquire such bitcoins from third-party facilitators through cash payments of US Dollars. Although the Shares will not be the exact equivalent of a direct investment in bitcoins, they provide investors with an alternative that allows a level of participation in bitcoin markets through the securities market.
The exchange traded fund will list by the symbol COIN – so for those of you looking to gain exposure to the price fluctuations of bitcoin but do not want to buy or mine bitcoin directly, this could be a good option. A good thing for bitcoin? Surely.
