The SEC has published a document on the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, which is set to issue its own shares to investors. The primary objective of this Trust is to hold Bitcoin, and the initiative is sponsored by Digital Asset Services, LLC.
The name Winklevoss has been synonymous with Bitcoin for quite some time now. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss launched their own Bitcoin exchange, called Gemini, several months ago. Despite not being that big of success as experts had hoped, the company has expanded its services to the UK earlier this month.
The Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust
But it looks like the Twins want to take things out the next level where Bitcoin is concerned. By launching the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, they aim to bring even more legitimacy to cryptocurrency. The Trust will issue and redeem shares in blocks of 50,0000 Shares, referred to as “Baskets”. Only authorized participants will be eligible to receive shares.
As the concept suggests, the number of shares issued will represent a specific amount of Bitcoin owned by the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust. The value of Baskets will be recalculated every business day. Moreover, the number of shares in one particular Basket will never deviate from its 50,000 number.
Investing in the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust will not be without risks, though. Since there is no public market for the Shares right now, investors may not be enticed to put in a lot of funds. However, the SEC document mentions how all shares will be listed and traded on Bats BZX Exchange, under the ticker “COIN”.
Based on the information found in the SEC filing, it appears a total of 1 million shares will be issued. There will be a maximum price per Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust share of US$65. This seems to indicate the Twins hope to raise 65 million US Dollars with this effort, which is quite a significant number.
At the same time, this news is another vote of confidence for the Bitcoin ecosystem. Cryptocurrency has become more popular over the past few years, and investors all over the world are keeping an eye on what is happening. Injecting an additional US$65m into the ecosystem would push the market cap up a bit. That said, it is possible the Winklevoss twins will use a part of their Bitcoin stash for this project.
Source: SEC
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