BIT Poised to Become Publicly Traded Bitcoin Fund

Barry Silbert’s Bitcoin Investment Trust is poised to become the first publicly traded bitcoin fund, with approval and assignment of a ticker symbol by the financial industry’s main self-regulatory body paving the way for trading on an electronic platform operated by OTC Markets Group .
The BIT, which was first launched in 2013 as a private fund for accredited investors with annual incomes greater than $200,000 or assets of more than $1 million, has been racing against a rival offering by twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, best known for their lawsuit against Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg .
While the competing Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust is going through a lengthy Securities and Exchange Commission process to register a formal exchange-traded fund, the BIT has taken a backdoor route to public listing. By exploiting a rule that allows holders of a private fund to sell their shares publicly after a 12-month lockup period and completing a less arduous approval process with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, some of those long-held shares in BIT should soon be available to investors of any income or wealth bracket. The BIT is sponsored by Grayscale Investments, a unit of Mr. Silbert’s Digital Currency Group, which he established last year to hold the digital currency interests of his broker-dealer SecondMarket Inc.

This post was published at Wall Street Journal on March 1, 2015.

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