Bitcoin Investment Trust Launches on SecondMarket
The Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT), a private investment vehicle, announced today that it has begun raising capital on SecondMarket.
The BIT is an open-ended, private trust that is exclusively invested in bitcoin and derives its value solely from the price of bitcoin. It enables institutional and accredited individual investors to gain exposure to bitcoin without the buying, storing and safekeeping challenges of direct bitcoin ownership. The BIT is the first U.S.-based private investment vehicle to invest exclusively in bitcoin.
“However, bitcoin also faces regulatory uncertainty and widespread adoption issues that make investing in bitcoin a highly risky endeavor.”
The BIT’s sponsor is Alternative Currency Asset Management (ACAM), a wholly-owned subsidiary of SecondMarket Holdings, Inc. Shares of the BIT are being exclusively offered through SecondMarket Inc., a registered broker-dealer. SecondMarket has also made a $2 million seed investment in the BIT.
“We incubated the BIT to alleviate the problems of direct bitcoin ownership, including having to wire money to newly-established and potentially unregulated entities around the world,” said SecondMarket Founder and CEO Barry Silbert.
“SecondMarket has a track record of making alternative investments accessible to a broader group of qualified investors, and our infrastructure enables streamlined capital raising, liquidity, and investor communications for funds and companies. Thus, we believe that a bitcoin-related investment vehicle is a great fit for SecondMarket.”
Bitcoin is a digital currency and global transaction network that was created to eliminate the challenges of using analog currency and payment mechanisms in a digital world. Since its inception in 2009, the market capitalization of bitcoin has risen to $1.5 billion, 24 million bitcoin transactions have been conducted, and more than 10,000 vendors now accept bitcoin. Proponents believe that bitcoin has potential as a store of value, global currency and/or global transaction network, and could disrupt the incumbents in payment processing, remittance and other related industries. Only a finite number of bitcoins can ever be created; accordingly, bitcoin may not suffer the inflationary impact of fiat currencies.
“We believe that bitcoin may have significant upside given the size and scope of the industries that potentially are impacted by bitcoin,” Silbert noted.
“However, bitcoin also faces regulatory uncertainty and widespread adoption issues that make investing in bitcoin a highly risky endeavor.”
As sponsor, ACAM has retained prominent service providers including Ernst & Young (auditor), Continental Stock Transfer & Trust (transfer agent) and SecondMarket, Inc. (marketplace, custodian and authorized participant). Investors who purchase shares in the BIT will have the opportunity to gain liquidity through periodic auctions on SecondMarket expected to begin in 2014. The Net Asset Value (NAV) of the BIT will be calculated daily and made publicly available.
For more information, visit http://bitcointrust.co/
About ACAM
Alternative Currency Asset Management (ACAM), a wholly-owned subsidiary of SecondMarket, is an asset manager focused on alternative currencies, including bitcoin. ACAM is the sponsor of the Bitcoin Investment Trust.
About SecondMarket
SecondMarket enable private companies, investment funds and other issuers to manage liquidity, raise capital and communicate with their stakeholders. SecondMarket is backed by premier investors, including FirstMark Capital, The Social+Capital Partnership, Li Ka-shing Foundation, Temasek Holdings, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Silicon Valley Bank. SecondMarket is a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA, MSRB and SIPC and a registered alternative trading system (ATS) for private company stock.
For more information about SecondMarket, please visit http://secondmarket.com/
Related News
Article updated on October 1 at 11:44 BST. Private investment vehicle the Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT) will today (26th September) begin raising capital on SecondMarket, the alternative trading system for private company stock. BIT, an open-ended private trust, invests exclusively in bitcoin and enables people to gain exposure to the digital currency without having to directly buy and store it. Shares of BIT, which is the first US-based private investment vehicle to invest exclusively in bitcoin, are being offered exclusively on SecondMarket. Initially, each BIT share will represent 0.1....
Barry Silbert: he's one busy businessman. From CEO of SecondMarket and the Bitcoin Investment Trust, in addition to the leader of the new Bitcoin Opportunity Corp., he's had quite a lot going on. And now we're learning via BusinessInsider that Silbert is planning to step down from his role as CEO at SecondMarket, an online illiquid asset marketplace. He's reportedly now exclusively committed to working on his bitcoin-related ventures, specifically the Bitcoin Investment Trust, which allows major investors to get involved with bitcoin in a secure manner. Silbert will still remain the....
A net asset valuation of SecondMarket's Bitcoin Investment Trust has pegged its value at $61.1 million USD (or 67,300 BTC) in a matter of three months. The trust was established in order to allow institutional investors to dabble into bitcoin - and it's clearly working. Wall Street continues to keep their watchful eyes on the digital currency. SecondMarket CEO Barry Silbert says himself that the performance of the trust has surpassed even his expectations, with a goal to hit $10 million USD by the year's end. Last week, Fidelity Investments - in partnership with SecondMarket - allowed....
Some pretty big news coming from the SecondMarket/Bitcoin Investment Trust today. Company head honcho Barry Silbert took to Twitter on Saturday to announce that he's planning to form a syndicate to bid on a huge sum of bitcoins up for auction by the U. S. Marshals service. 1/Announcement: @BitcoinTrust and SecondMarket's bitcoin trading desk will be forming a syndicate to bid in US Marshals bitcoin auction... - Barry Silbert (@barrysilbert) June 14, 2014. The announcement comes following this week's headlines that the United States Marshals service is planning to auction off over 29,000....
SecondMarket is planning to open up its private bitcoin investment fund to ordinary investors. The change should be in place by the fourth quarter of 2014, the Wall Street Journal reports. SecondMarket launched its Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT) last September, but it was reserved for private investors with $1m in assets and incomes above $200,000. The trust buys and sells bitcoins and allows investors to place bets on the value of bitcoin without owning any coins directly. The company currently has $54m in assets under management. SecondMarket now seems to be looking to expand the fund by....