Feb. 22, 2022
Please enable this revolutionary new technology (i.e., Bitcoin) to be reached by those who desperately need it as an investment alternative in the United States. The SEC's objective is to protect the investor and to maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets. As recently noted by CNN, consumers lost over $5.8 billion to fraud in 2021 (see https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/22/consumers-lost-5point8-billion-to-fraud-last-year-up-70percent-over-2020.html). Most of this fraud is facilitated on legacy financial rails. As you know, Bitcoin offers an alternative infrastructure for the tracking of transactions, including those completed fraudulently, thereby enabling law enforcement to better accomplish their objectives of fighting fraud. Clearly, this also means that you are accomplishing your objective of protecting investors by enabling a Bitcoin ETF. Still, some fraud occurs via Bitcoin rails. Yet even in this case, having an easy-to-access trusted custodian of an individual's Bitcoin investment would inhibit the individual from sending Bitcoin so freely to nefarious actors. The infrastructure for the sending, receiving, and storing of Bitcoin has advanced far beyond the requirements for virtually all other assets that are permitted to trade as ETFs. Truly, there are very few (if any) strong justifications for not allowing individuals to protect their wealth through a Bitcoin ETF product.