May. 10, 2022
Dear SEC, I am Tim Niemeyer. I'm a mid-40s elementary music teacher from Springfield, IL. 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. I applaud your work on snuffing out securities violations in the digital asset space. But Bitcoin is not a security; it is a decentralized, permissionless, censorship-resistant, immutable digital asset. By slow-playing the inevitable, you are unnecessarily restricting Americans' freedom of economic choice and disproportionately harming the middle and lower class while allowing the rest of the world to gain a substantial stake in the future of digital value. By leading the way, we stand to benefit from technological innovation, sustainable energy independence, economic empowerment, and financial inclusion. This year, GBTC has traded at an approximately 25% 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. Sincerely, Tim Niemeyer