Canadian investment fund manager 3iq Corp. announced on Thursday that The Bitcoin Fund has completed an initial public offering (IPO) and merged with 3iq Bitcoin Trust. Consequently, The Bitcoin Fund now has 1,491,800 outstanding class A units representing the total asset of approximately US$14 million.
The 3iq Bitcoin Fund’s price chart on the TSX Exchange on April 9. The Bitcoin Fund, managed by 3iq, has completed an IPO and also merged with 3iq Bitcoin Trust.
Founded in 2012, 3iq currently focuses on digital assets, disruptive technologies and the blockchain space. The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), a wholly owned subsidiary of the TMX Group, is Canada’s largest stock exchange and the world’s 9th largest exchange by market capitalization.
The class A units are available to all investors, the fund’s prospectus notes. 3iq, which acts as the investment manager and portfolio manager of the fund, elaborated just before trading began:
The class A units will commence trading today on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol QBTC.U.
The Bitcoin Fund, managed by 3iq, has completed an initial public offering and has begun trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). It has been a long road for 3iq and The Bitcoin Fund since their filing was first rejected. After a hearing, a commissioner with the Ontario Securities Commission ruled in their favor.
The Bitcoin Fund’s investment objectives are to provide investors with “exposure to the digital currency bitcoin and the daily price movements of the U.S. dollar price of bitcoin” and “the opportunity for long-term capital appreciation”, 3iq detailed. Investing in The Bitcoin Fund is “appropriate only for investors who have the capacity to absorb a loss of some or all of their investment”, the company emphasized. This closed-end fund “will not speculate with regard to short-term changes in bitcoin prices”, according to the fund’s prospectus, which can be found here.
How The Bitcoin Fund Calculates BTC’s Price
The Bitcoin Fund’s prospectus details that its bitcoin will be valued based on the MVIS Cryptocompare Institutional Bitcoin Index (MVBTC), which is maintained by MV Index Solutions GmbH (MVIS).
Cryptocompare independently announced on Thursday that the MVIS Cryptocompare Institutional Bitcoin Index has been licensed to 3iq Corp. for The Bitcoin Fund. This index intends to provide investors with a means to track the performance of bitcoin on selected top exchanges, including Binance, Bitflyer, Bitstamp, Coinbase, Gemini, Itbit, and Kraken, Cryptocompare described.
The MVIS Cryptocompare Institutional Bitcoin Price Index is used to calculate the price of bitcoin for The Bitcoin Fund, managed by 3iq. It has been licensed to 3iq Corp.
3iq Corp. originally filed a preliminary prospectus for the IPO of The Bitcoin Fund with the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC)’s Investment Funds Structures Projects branch (IFSP) in October 2018. However, the IFSP staff raised a number of concerns after reviewing it, arguing that the fund was not in the public interest of Canadians. This resulted in the IFSP director rejecting the fund’s prospectus in February last year. 3iq then requested a hearing and a review of this decision. OSC Commissioner Lawrence P. Haber later ruled that the staff’s concerns “do not warrant denying a receipt for The Bitcoin Fund’s prospectus”, and its IPO filing was subsequently approved.
