May. 06, 2022
Dear SEC, I am an MIT alum and appreciate that Gary Gensler taught there but a spot ETF makes way more sense than futures contracts. I have invested in futures for multiple commodities and it definitely is not easy to understand the risks for individual retail non-professionals. A spot ETF is simple and you could take the average of as many trusted exchanges to lower volatility. Buying bitcoin directly has risks of security and lost keys. Buying through cash app, paypal, etc means higher fees. An ETF would be the best vehicle for retail and institutional investors alike. I write to you as a GBTC shareholder in support of the conversion of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTCQX: GBTC) — the world’s largest publicly-traded cryptocurrency fund — to an ETF. 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, shareholders like me are experiencing a destruction of value of around $7.5 billion. I’m writing from California, with gratitude for the opportunity to express my view and with the hope that you will approve this conversion and protect the interest of investors. Sincerely, Jasen Li MIT BS, MEng '97