XML 28 R18.htm IDEA: XBRL DOCUMENT

Significant Accounting Policies (Policies)

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2022

The financial statements are expressed in U.S. dollars and have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“U.S. GAAP”). The Trust is an investment company and follows the specialized accounting and reporting guidance in the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC” or “Codification”) Topic 946, Financial Services—Investment Companies.

The accompanying comparative financial statements are unaudited, but in the opinion of management of the Sponsor, contain all adjustments (which include normal recurring adjustments) considered necessary to present fairly the financial position of the Trust as of June 30, 2022 and December 31, 2021 and the results of operations for the three and six months ended June 30, 2022 and 2021. These interim financial statements should be read in conjunction with the Trust’s annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021. Interim period results are not necessarily indicative of results for a full-year period.

Pursuant to the Statement of Cash Flows Topic of the Codification, the Trust qualifies for an exemption from the requirement to provide a statement of cash flows and has elected not to provide a statement of cash flows.

Use of Estimates

The preparation of financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosures of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of income and expenses during the reporting period. Actual results could differ from those estimates.

Cash

Cash represents cash deposits held at financial institutions and digital asset exchanges. Cash in a bank deposit account, at times, may exceed U.S. federally insured limits. The Trust has not experienced any losses in such accounts and does not believe it is exposed to any significant credit risk on such bank deposits.

Investments and Valuation

The Trust’s investments in digital assets are stated at fair value. For a further discussion of the Trust’s calculations of valuation, please see “Calculation of Valuation” in the footnote below. Digital assets are generally valued using prices as reported on reputable and liquid exchanges and may involve utilizing an average of bid and ask quotes using closing prices provided by such exchanges as of the date and time of determination ("Calculation of Valuation" below). Factors such as the recent stability of the exchange, current liquidity of the exchange, and recent price activity of an exchange will be considered as to the determination of which exchanges to utilize. The time used is 4:00 pm ET which corresponds to 20:00 UTC during Daylight Savings Time and 21:00 UTC during non-Daylight Savings Time. The Sponsor’s Valuation Policy provides a listing of preferred exchanges. While some digital assets are valued based on prices reported in the public markets, other digital assets may be more thinly-traded or subject to irregular trading activity. Determinations on the value of certain digital assets, and how to value such assets as to which limited prices or quotations are available, are based on the Sponsor’s recommendations or instructions.

Digital asset transactions are recorded on the trade date. Realized gains and losses from digital asset transactions are determined using the identified cost method. Any change in net unrealized gain or loss is reported in the statement of operations. Commissions and other trading fees are reflected as an adjustment to cost or proceeds at the time of the transaction.

Calculation of Valuation

For all periods through the quarterly period ended June 30, 2021, the NAV Per Share, the NAV of the Trust, and the fair valuations for each Portfolio Crypto Asset were calculated by the Trust’s Administrator in reliance on the fair value of each Portfolio Crypto Asset based on a blended average approach for calculating the price of a digital asset (the "Blended Bitwise Crypto Asset Price"), which the Sponsor was responsible for calculating. The Sponsor provided this price to the Administrator, and the Administrator used this price (multiplied by the Trust’s holdings) for each asset to determine the fair value of the Trust’s assets. The Administrator then subtracted the Trust’s liabilities to determine the Trust’s NAV. The Administrator then divided this value by the Trust’s shares

outstanding in order to determine the NAV per share. As a result of the Sponsor’s responsibility in this regard, any errors, discontinuance or changes in such valuation calculations may have had an adverse effect on the value of the Shares. The Sponsor instituted this valuation policy in order to generate fair value estimates because it determined that such policy was in the best interest of shareholders, as it would avoid misstatements in valuation of the assets potentially arising from deviations in pricing across the digital asset market, and because of the fragmented nature of the digital asset trading ecosystem. As a result, management applied this valuation technique which it determined to be appropriate given the circumstances.

Following the filing of its Form 10, the Sponsor conducted a complete review of its process for determining fair valuation in the presentation of its financial statements and calculation of NAV. In this process, the Sponsor evaluated whether or not the identification of a principal market for each of the Trust’s assets for valuation purposes, during each period for which the Trust created and had audited its financial statements, would have created a material difference in the Trust’s estimated fair value or assets. In conjunction, the Sponsor determined to undertake a change in valuation policy for the fair valuation of cryptocurrencies held in the Trust. As a result, the Sponsor developed a revised process for the determination of a principal market for each asset based on this consideration and disclosed and implemented this change in valuation policy and accounting policy prior to the creation of financial statements for the period ending September 30, 2021. The Blended Bitwise Crypto Asset Price is no longer used for any calculations by the Trust, including NAV Per Share, NAV of the Trust or fair valuations for any Portfolio Crypto Asset.

The process that the Sponsor developed for identifying a principal market (the "Principal Market"), as described in FASB ASC 820-10, which outlines the application of fair value accounting, was to begin by identifying publicly available, well established and reputable cryptocurrency exchanges selected by the Sponsor and its affiliates in their sole discretion, including BitFlyer, Binance, Bitstamp, Bittrex, Coinbase, itBit, Kraken, Gemini and Poloniex, and then calculating, on each valuation period, the highest volume exchange during the 60 minutes prior to 4:00 pm ET for each asset (the "Principal Market Price"). In evaluating the markets that could be considered principal markets, the Trust considered whether or not the specific markets were accessible to the Trust, either directly or through an intermediary, at the end of each period.

In conducting this review, the Sponsor also retroactively applied this process for identifying a principal market to the prior periods of reported financial results, including the fiscal years ended 2018, 2019 and 2020, to determine whether or not any material or significant differences would have resulted from the application of a different valuation policy in the creation of each financial statement (e.g., comparing the fair value prices determined using the existing and previous valuation methodology to the hypothetical fair value prices using an identified principal market for each asset) and to consider whether management’s use of the previous valuation policy would have created any material departures from a valuation policy of identifying a principal market.

The Sponsor’s results conclude that there were no material or significant differences in valuation or to the financial statements as previously presented when using the policy of identifying a principal market described above as compared to the previous valuation methodology for any period since the Trust commenced operations. Included within the net change in unrealized appreciation (depreciation) within the Trust's Statement of Operations for the six month period ended June 30, 2021 is $(17,504), representing the immaterial difference in the Trust's fair market value of digital assets from the beginning of the year determined using the Blended Bitwise Crypto Asset Price and the Principal Market Price.

The following provides an overview of the Principal Market and the Principal Market Prices for Portfolio Crypto Assets that comprised the majority of the Trust’s assets for the six month period ended June 30, 2022.


Asset	Principal Market Price		Principal Market
Bitcoin (BTC)	$	18,895.01	Coinbase
Ethereum (ETH)	$	1,019.72	Coinbase
Solana (SOL)	$	31.98	Coinbase
Cardano (ADA)	$	0.44	Coinbase
Avalanche (AVAX)	$	16.24	Coinbase
Polkadot (DOT)	$	6.81	Coinbase
Polygon (MATIC)	$	0.45	Coinbase
Litecoin (LTC)	$	51.43	Coinbase
Bitcoin Cash (BCH)	$	99.92	Coinbase
Chainlink (LINK)	$	6.04	Coinbase