May 21, 2022
Dear SEC, I am a software engineer from Connecticut and I am in favor of approving the Form 19b-4 that NYSE Arca filed with you to convert Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTCQX: GBTC) – the world’s largest publicly traded crypto asset fund, with approximately $30 billion in AUM, hundreds of millions in daily trading volume, more than 850,000 investors, holding approximately 3.4% of all Bitcoins outstanding – into a Bitcoin Spot ETF. This year, GBTC has traded at an approximately 30% discount to its NAV, which means the price of GBTC is less than the price of its underlying assets, Bitcoin. With approximately $30 billion in AUM, that results in approximately $7.5 billion of trapped value from existing U.S. investors. I personally myself invested significant amount of my saving into GBTC in my brokerage account over past several years for the benefit of ease of bitcoin wallet management and corporate grade custody service from GBTC parent company. Due to the severe discount on GBTC over NAV, my GBTC investment holdings has suffered unfair losses compared to bitcoin spot prices and I hope that SEC can approve GBTC ETF soon to unlock the GBTC discount losses. Sincerely, Hong Lu