July 17, 2018
Dear SEC Regulators. I am a 43 year old Firefighter in Michigan. I recently added some Bitcoin & Ethereum to my portfolio for some exposure to the digital asset markets. After doing much due diligence I found that it is a good hedge to my portfolio. I made my purchase before the CBOE started Bitcoin Futures Trading. Since the futures have been in effect for Bitcoin I found it to be an unfair advantage for people to be able to short Bitcoin without having more exposure to the market for people to easily purchase the asset without all of the hassles of learning how to buy, and store digital assets. I think a sensible solution to this would be to approve the Bitcoin ETF proposal submitted by the CBOE.
I would like to commend you for your decision of allowing Bitcoin and ether to be traded as a non security asset. I'm just a bit worried about the vast majority of the new cryptocurrency companies and organizations coming up with every kind of token under the sun. I know you have your hands full sorting through all of this and I will be praying for all of our Regulators to make sound decisions that won't hamper innovation, and at the same time help protect uninformed investors about the fraudulent ico's and internet scams that are flooding the internet. I urge you to set a high standard in the beginning to help clean up this marketplace, and possibly start a public education program for retail investors to help them navigate these assets.
Once again I hope you will approve the Bitcoin ETF proposal submitted by the CBOE and any other derivative as long as the custodian actually holds the asset in proportion to the invested amount. That to me is key for having a Level Playing Field along side of futures Trading.
I have done a lot of research and they digital asset market and I would like to make myself available to anyone at the SEC to help with public education or anything else that I may be a help to.
Please feel free to contact me anytime.
Thank you,
Greg Pitchure
Cadillac MI