Feb. 22, 2022
Dear SEC, I’m writing to support the conversion of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (Symbol: GBTC), currently the world’s largest Bitcoin fund, to the first Spot Bitcoin ETF in the United States. Allowing a Bitcoin Futures based ETF while not allowing a physically backed Bitcoin ETF makes very little sense considering the futures markets ultimately draw their prices from the spot markets. Not to mention the fact that several other countries are and have already launched Bitcoin ETFs that are physically backed by bitcoin leads credence to the idea that this is an acceptable product. Grayscale and GBTC have proven their ability to custody customer's funds/bitcoin as they have been operating their trust for almost a decade with no issues, such as hacks etc, to date. By not allowing this trust to convert to an ETF investors are continuing to be harmed due to the trust trading at a significant discount (which is continuing to increase) to its NAV and investors having no other options to gain direct exposure to bitcoin without having to go to mostly unregulated crypto platforms. Your mandate is to protect investors and I can't think of a better way to protect bitcoin investors than to approve the Grayscale GBTC fund conversion to an ETF which will eliminate the discount in the trust and allow investors to gain exposure to bitcoin without having to venture out into unregulated platforms. Sincerely, Jason