Apr. 22, 2022
Dear SEC, I write to you as a GBTC shareholder, in support of the conversion of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTCQX: GBTC) to an ETF. A spot Bitcoin ETF should be approved and GBTC is the best first candidate since it’s essentially managed as a spot Bitcoin etf already. The approved futures backed Bitcoin ETFs are imperfect and cause investors to lost money on fees paid to lawyers and such. Furthermore, the discount to NAV in GBTC has been around 25%, on average, this year. This means that the price of GBTC is less than the price of Bitcoin, the asset itself. Given that GBTC has about $30bn in AUM, existing shareholders like me are experiencing a destruction of value of around $7.5 billion. GBTC is the world’s largest publicly-traded cryptocurrency fund, with hundreds of millions in daily trading volume. It holds approximately 3.4% of all Bitcoins outstanding, and is held by more than 850,000 investors, like me. I’m writing from New York with gratitude for the opportunity to express my view to you and with the hope and expectation that you will approve this conversion and protect the interest of investors. Sincerely, Francis V Cusimano Jr