28.03.2024

Now Reporting to the SEC, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust One Step Closer to Public Trading

Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust manages investment in Bitcoin on behalf of investors, exposing them to the coin’s potential for gains while mitigating risks. The Jan. 21 announcement advertises the trust as the first of its kind to report to the SEC.

Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust now reports to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), putting it one step closer to public trading.

Grayscale’s full Form 10 is available here. Subsequent to this registration, the trust will need to file quarterly and annual reports with the SEC, which will then become publicly available. In response to an inquiry from Cointelegraph, Grayscale declined to specify just when it will file the first of these reports but said the firm will do so in accordance with SEC regulations.

The announcement

While a Form 10 filing is not enough for a company to begin trading publicly on exchanges, it is a step in that direction and opens the trust up to more investors than were previously available without registration.

In the announcement, the firm makes particular mention of accredited investors – a controversial designation. Owning or purchasing shares from the Trust’s private placement gives them the advantage of quicker liquidity with a reduced holding period of 6 months.

Accredited investors

Grayscale’s announcement arrives as the SEC considers changes to its accredited investor designation, couched in the 1934 act’s Section 12(g).

Effectively, the SEC trusts the wealthy or executive class to invest with insight and thereby minimal risk. Conversely, the Main Street investor, the decades-old moniker assumes, lacks this insight. Under SEC exemptions companies may offer shares to accredited investors without filing all documents that the SEC requires of publicly-listed companies. Critics castigate this exemption as favorable to the rich while being exclusionary of everyday investors, whom former SEC commissioner Michael Piwowar dubbed “forgotten investors.”

Bitcoin News Summary – October 14, 2019

Some of the biggest corporate backers of Facebook’s Libra currency have withdrawn from the project, dealing a major blow to Facebook’s plans for a global cryptocurrency. Visa, MasterCard, eBay, and Stripe have all followed PayPal’s lead in bowing out of the Libra Association, just prior to its upcoming inaugural board meeting. These additional exits leave Libra with no major US payment processor.

The American financial regulator has taken legal action against the Telegram company for what it claims was an unregistered securities offering. Telegram raised $1.7 billion Dollars for its TON cryptocurrency. The SEC is seeking a restraining order to prevent the release within the US of the new TON tokens.

The Internal Revenue Service in the US has updated its rules for the taxation of cryptocurrency. The newly-published guidance clarifies how tax applies to new and formerly ignored situations, such as profits from the sale of crypto, income tax on crypto, and how crypto forks and airdrops are taxed. One downside is that people now may be taxed in excess of their gain from airdrops.

And finally, the United Nations Children’s agency announced a new fund for receiving cryptocurrency donations. UNICEF is the first UN agency to accept crypto donations, which they will use to fund open source technology of assistance to young people. UNICEF will hold and disburse donations directly in crypto form – not in fiat.

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