Jun. 07, 2022
Dear SEC, I am Mike Newman, an environmental consultant from the UK 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 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. I also would like to see this turned into an ETF so that I (like many normal retail investors) can actually access it easily. We are not able to trade the OTC markets using our brokers. It becoming an ETF and trading on a major exchange would make it available to those that would like to add a small allocation to their portfolio. Sincerely, Mike Newman