Feb. 23, 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. I have been a longtime investor in GBTC and I have seen a lot of volatility unlike other commodities like precious metals. But, the best way to think about Bitcoin is as a digital commodity. I know it is a very foreign thought. I was born before computers existed - at least at the consumer level. Apple was invented well into my childhood. Watching the world go from tape, to cassette, to disk, to large drive, to small drive, to attachment, to the cloud has been fascinating to say the least. And it has happened very fast. It is inevitable that value itself would come to be defined solely in the digital realm. Mining gold is a very destructive and outdated practice. Mining Bitcoin is currently destructive with its energy consumption. But, mining gold will likely not change much in terms of it’s destruction to the planet - in fact it’s gotten worse. But mining Bitcoin has already started to become less pervasive and wasteful by using flare and solar. If nothing else it means this is where the future generation of great thinkers are putting their cause and their money. It is inevitable that value lives in digital form. Let us regulate and embrace it now in order to better harness it’s potential for future generations. Blockchain is incredible and its use case barely tapped. Bitcoin can help create generational wealth if protections and regulations are put into place. And, one of the first steps is acknowledging Bitcoin’s place in the future of finance. A Spot Bitcoin ETF will eventually eliminate premiums and discounts and eventually the huge arbitrage that exists between different BTC products, and the resulting financial products will more efficiently track the price of Bitcoin and become more stable overall. It will take time, but without such consideration it will likely never happen. Because a lot of people do not want it to happen. And, they are the ones who profit from this great volatility, which is also how people get hurt. Sincerely, Jon B