Subject: General comment regarding Bitcoin ETF BatsBZX
From: Fabrizio Marchionne

March 6, 2017

Dear Commissioners, thank you for the opportunity to express my comment on the subject.

I am not a US citizen nor I am a big investor, but I've been into Bitcoin for several years and through this asset I've been able to learn and deepen my knowledge about financial markets and many other aspects of life and society I wouldn't be able to otherwise.
Financial markets today are a way for us to visualize evolution and participate in it by giving value to what has and creates value.

I think Bitcoin has a great potential to become useful to not only retail and merchants, but nations and governments aswell as we near a time of great innovation in both technology and society evolution. 
There are many uses of Bitcoin other than a financial instrument that I think you have already listened to and considered.

As an organization that has a priority the security of investors in your country, I would advise to accept a Bitcoin ETF through the many that are being submitted, considering there are many concerns regarding other ways investors have to use to access this market. I would advise that investor are sure they are cautious with this, and a step towards assuring caution is taken seriously would be limiting the access investors have to this instrument introducing it without a way to leverage it and putting a maximum percentage to funds that an investor can allocate in this instrument.

Introducing an official and recognized way to speculate on Bitcoin you encourage a legal ecosystem to develop in your country bringing in money from other countries aswell. America has been the forefront of innovation in the previous decades and I think bringing on this spirit and being open to new technologies is the way to go to ensure you remain an efficient country. By giving people a secure and regulated access to an asset that in other countries, mainly eastern, has flourished because of exchanges showing fake volume or improper business like multi level marketing frauds, you once again would prove America is where fair marketplaces and ideas grow.

Eventually a Bitcoin ETF is very likely to be approved in other countries aswell, in Sweden there is already an ETN live and operating from more than a year.
One of the most interesting applications of Blockchain technology, that is being developed already, is that it could be used as not only a database but a proxy for an operative financial platform that could give access to all financial instruments with the use of Bitcoin alone instead of other currencies. Being Bitcoin a deflationary asset, if it ever will become widely used, there would be no incentive to scale out of it if it was being used as a vehicle for investments too and not only for speculation. This is of course just a possibility, but one that has to be considered aswell with others.

Fabrizio Marchionne