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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Grayscale BTC Trust but were afraid to ask!
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on: April 05, 2021, 04:05:40 PM
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As a GBTC shareholder, I just received an email from grayscale stating their intention to convert to an ETF. Maybe they are really serious about turning the trust into an ETF. The big question then is what will their fee be when it does happen. In case you missed it, we released a communication today regarding Grayscale’s intentions for a Bitcoin ETF ( https://go.grayscale.co/e/652383/for-a-bitcoin-etf-b11e4faf4c05/bnbhz/239595549?h=VQssTGl7o1CsRdCXWN9pgUulF29V5XvSrzO16OVrCuQ) and our initiative to convert Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a Bitcoin ETF. As a summary, this reiterates that: We are 100% committed to converting GBTC into an ETF, as well as bringing all of our other products through the full lifecycle of our business model, iterated below, when permissible. The timing will be driven by the regulatory environment. When GBTC converts to an ETF, shareholders of publicly-traded GBTC shares will not need to take action and the management fee will be reduced accordingly. For more information, we invite you to read the blog post, also referenced in the 8-K we filed today. All the best, Grayscale Investor Relations Team |
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Grayscale BTC Trust but were afraid to ask!
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on: March 31, 2021, 04:36:36 AM
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This sounds like shitty journalism is 2% really "egregious" compared to 1%?
Just remember we are talking about passive investments funds. Many of those types of funds in traditional finance have commissions up to 0.25%. Many of them are actually free, as they are building block for more complex products, or are actually used to lure customers into an investment relationship. Seconding fillippone, 2% is absolutely obscene for a passive fund. Also, over time a 2% decay vs a 1% decay is a massive difference for long term shareholders. My guess is that US ETF's, whenever they come, will have fees less than 1% and more than 0.25%, just because they will have to factor in the cost for safe custody of bitcoins. @DaRude Without US ETF GBTC still seems to be the only play in town.
I use to believe this as well, and I guess I still do for a direct bitcoin play, but now I cannot ignore the risk of a permanent 2% fee and what it implies. I need to investigate if there are other options. I could try to open a Fidelity account, and move some funds there. They seem to offer BTCC to US clients. Or invest in indirect instruments, such as Microstrategy. (which I did, and believe MSTR is now fairly valued and have since moved 1/3 of my GBTC to MSTR) This will imply the negative premium will be permanent
... Not following how you managed to come to that conclusion. Premium ultimately comes down to demand on the secondary market, if there's net demand there will be premium, if for some reason demand disappears then there will be discount. For demand to disappear there must be another more lucrative alternative for US retirement accounts to get exposure to BTC. Without US ETF GBTC still seems to be the only play in town.
I think the risk of a permanent negative premium is high because investors in secondary market will be more cautious at buying GBTC. Investors see that an ETF is on the horizon, or find some way to invest in the Canadian ETF's (Fidelity seems to offer it to US investors), or do what I did and put some money into an indirect bitcoin vehicle for now, like Microstrategy, or they can wait. This will remain unless Grayscale reduces its fee. |
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Grayscale BTC Trust but were afraid to ask!
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on: March 29, 2021, 05:57:12 AM
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Guys, I'm beginning to have second thoughts about investing in GBTC. Consider this scenario: Grayscale never converts GBTC to an ETF, never adds a process for bitcoin redemption, and keeps its massive 2% fee. They make noises about hiring ETF expertise, looking at ETF conversion when the SEC allows it, and looking into someway for bitcoin redemption, but in the end they don't have to do any of that. The bitcoins are locked in the trust, and Grayscale can just sit and eat 2% per annum. This will imply the negative premium will be permanent. No new institution will put money or bitcoin into GBTC. People would not buy GBTC on the secondary market except at steep discount. This $250 million share repurchase will probably not do anything to reduce the discount. Credit to poster below for this scenario: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4415487-greyscale-bitcoin-trust-buying-bitcoin-at-a-discountAuthor, I would say I highly doubt your premise and do not begin to understand your logic. This statement "I suspect we will get an ETF eventually - hence the case GBTC will trade at a steep premium is effectively dead, in my opinion" seems quite backward. Why? Essentially, Grayscale has no incentive, no motivation, no reason to convert to an etf. Why would they? All 650,000 bitcoin are locked into their fund with no way out. They get paid based on a percentage, as you noted a very HIGH percentage, of the underlying bitcoin. The ETF landscape is cutthroat, low-margin, and destined to be filled with competition. Even if they were to retain 100% of their bitcoin under management (BUM), they would only stand to get a fee of perhaps .3% (the rate NYDIG has promised), for a whopping 85% reduction in fees. However, if they just stand pat, they will continue raking in 2% or 13,000 bitcoin per year, for doing nothing other than filing financial statements. Sure, no one will buy shares from them directly anymore, and any new Trust they set up is unlikely to gain much momentum, but who cares? They are highly unlikely to be able to build ANY alternative revenue stream that would ever begin to approach 13,000 bitcoin per year. If hitcoin hits $1,000,000 in 2025, that is $13 Billion for filing financial statements. So, in my view, Grayscale is now an anomaly. GBTC might eventually be the largest single investment holding anywhere, but it will forever trade at a significant discount. They simply have no reason to convert. Sure, they might offer a separate ETF, hell, they could offer it for free and coast on the revenues they get from GBTC, but GBTC will forever be a trust and just sit there leaking bitcoin in fees. FWIW, here is Michael Sonnenshein craftly saying no way we will reduce our guaranteed fee. www.coindesk.com/... |
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Grayscale BTC Trust but were afraid to ask!
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on: March 27, 2021, 04:40:36 AM
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.... But i believe GBTC is still the only alternative for US retirement accounts. It's just a matter of options, if you're able to do so, buy the real thing, if not it's an alternative that might work for you.
GBTC is also a 1000 pound guerilla, a good indicator of markets interest in BTC if you know how to read it
[/quote]
@cryptoboss2020, THIS!!
I am in the US, and have retirement accounts that I want to have exposure to bitcoin. I can't buy bitcoin directly in those accounts, so GBTC is the only way at the moment.
I mean I could also invest bitcoin indirectly, by buying MicroStrategy, Riot Blockchain, and such other stocks, but these do not necessarily track bitcoin price movement. And they are highly speculative. I was a miner once, and mining goes through BIG boom bust cycles, and I think you would be crazy to put money into public crypto mining companies at their current prices unless you want to speculate. MicroStrategy is interesting, but I have no idea where they are going...are they pivoting from a Business Intelligence software firm (with declining revenue mind you) to something in the blockchain space? If so how will they do it and how will they get past the current shortage of crypto software engineering talent?
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Grayscale BTC Trust but were afraid to ask!
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on: March 10, 2021, 03:39:00 PM
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Some distress signal in the Grayscale Group:
Digital Currency Group Announces Plan to Purchase Shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTCQX: GBTC)NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Digital Currency Group, Inc. (“DCG”), the parent company of Grayscale Investments, LLC, has authorized the purchase by DCG of up to $250 million worth of shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTCQX: GBTC). DCG plans to use cash on hand to fund the purchases and will make the purchases on the open market, at management’s discretion, in compliance with Rule 10b-18 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”).
DCG, will buy their subsidiary fund shares in the open market, using their free cash, so they are going to erase the negative premium. Maybe only the announcement of a potential buy will help mitigate the negative premium. I just saw this news was well. But I'm curious, as I am not very familiar with a Trust vehicle, is it legal for the parent of the trust to buy shares of the subsidiary trust? Also, if you look https://boards.greenhouse.io/grayscaleinvestments, you see that Grayscale has about 10 job openings related to ETF specialization. ETF Authorized Participant Relationship Manager ETF Compliance Office ETF Creation & Redemption Specialist ETF Finance Reporting Manager ETF Finance Support Manager ETF Market Maker Relationship Manager ETF Product Development Specialist ETF Sales Director (East) ETF Sales Director (West) This seems to lend credence to the rumors that Grayscale may convert their Trust to an ETF, or at least create an separate bitcoin ETF altogether. Hmm. |
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Grayscale BTC Trust but were afraid to ask!
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on: March 09, 2021, 12:23:39 PM
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Its better to give up in life and stop trying so hard to be financially Independent and Succesful.
The game is not fair so its Impossible for Acerage person to reach anywhere in life.
I give up no point!
As @darude wrote, bitcoin is the single, biggest chance in history to subvert the social status quo, redistributing wealth not on legacy powers, self-fulfilling mechanism and privileges, but only on smartness, maths and pure luck (yes, many of of were simply lucky to get into bitcoin so early). So, instead of whining about society, you should try to stack as may sats as possible before the inevitable happens. Now, please, let’s get back in topic, discussing the mechanism of the Grayscale fund, who none of us like, apparently, but is a contingent evil in our ecosystem. I would agree. Like many others I think bitcoin is revolutionary. History will look back at bitcoin as having as big an impact as the introduction of fire, language, coinage, the printing press, the bible, double book accounting, bank notes, gun powder, the sextant, etc etc. But going back to GBTC like you suggest, I wonder if de-leveraging is another issue that might be affecting the price. Michael Burry of 'The Big Short' fame has cryptically tweeted about how bitcoiners are ignoring the impact of leverage in the price rise, and the probable eventual crash. Could it be that those who are arbitraging the premium (by buying bitcoin, waiting 6 months, and then selling GBTC shares) took advantage or entered during the 20k to 50k run, and now must exit. I'm curious if there's a way to determine this. I use TDAmeritrade, and the volume for GBTC yesterday and I think all last week has been light. That would indicate that there was little buying in the secondary market, no? So, the price pull back from 58k left a dearth of interested buyers in the secondary market, at the same time that leveraged abitragers want to exit GBTC, and also at the time other bitcoin instruments are entering the market, all leading to negative premium. |
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Alternate cryptocurrencies / Altcoin Discussion / Re: CAN RIPPLE SURVIVE?
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on: March 09, 2021, 09:09:14 AM
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I have always thought ripple/xrp is quite shady. Here is an article in Forbes describing how ripple pumps and dumps. Article is 2 years old but still very good. Great flow diagram showing how the scam, uh hmm, I mean the business model, works. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2019/03/01/is-ripple-a-scam/?sh=35f5d99079a4In short, the founders issued shares to themselves, created a corporate structure to give the appearance of de-centralization, hyped the coin to boost its price in various ways, and paid well known traditional companies to partner to with it in order to give an air of legitimacy to it's perceived business value. Nothing has come out of any of these 'partnerships'. [edit] I think it will survive the SEC suit, but will ultimately die as a coin [/edit] |
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Grayscale BTC Trust but were afraid to ask!
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on: March 05, 2021, 05:26:21 AM
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Here's a interesting comment on seekingalpha about the current GBTC discount: https://seekingalpha.com/news/3669426-mulling-bitcoin-and-100k-is-grayscales-discount-a-buy-signal"Three reasons Grayscale (GBTC) is trading at a whopping big discount to the bitcoin it owns: (1) New ETF products that don't charge a hefty 2% annual fee for holding your bitcoin may soon appear. (2) GBTC is not redeemable. If the GBTC discount becomes excessive, Grayscale still owns the bitcoin, but existing shareholders get nothing and can't get the bitcoin out. So far as I know, there is no mechanism to bring the share price into line with the bitcoin price, which is why Im not buying any more GBTC. (3) ARKK is likely being forced to liquidate its holdings due to redemptions. As ARKK holds its bitcoin in GBTC, forced sales into a declining market could be pushing down GBTC to a huge discount."I had not considered the sale pressure from a possible ARK liquidation. I double checked ARK ETF's that have GBTC, and it is not ARKK. It is in ARKW (ARK NEXT GENERATION INTERNET ETF), where GBTC is the 3rd largest position (after Tesla and Square), at 8,309,914 shares with market value of $344,030,439.60 for 4.77% weight of the fund. GBTC has Shares Outstanding 692.3M, so ARKW holds 1.200% (8.309914M/692.3M). I'm not sure if ARKW selling a bit of their a little over 1% would cause such a large drop in GBTC premium. But in any case, I think it might be a good time to add some GBTC! |
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Grayscale BTC Trust but were afraid to ask!
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on: March 05, 2021, 03:17:43 AM
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I am following GBTC daily as I added it to my retirement accounts recently. When I added 3 weeks ago, the premium was about $6 dollars above btc price ($46 GBTC vs $40k BTC price).
Today the price closed at $41.40 vs BTC price of $47k. This is a massive $6 deficit.
I too am curious at the reason for the sell pressure...is it just some taking profit in the secondary market? or are they preparing to move to new BTC instruments like ETFs.
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Economy / Goods / Re: I'll buy one Porsche 911 for 1BTC.
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on: February 11, 2021, 09:42:42 AM
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I like 911 997 targa with PDK and 4 wheels drive. Do you think that prices of these are still falling?
I think 997.2 hardtops have stopped depreciating, especially the manual versions of the S and GTS. In fact they may be going up in price. Good condition ones with low miles are getting harder and harder to find. The Targa and convertible ones still have a little bit more to fall, I think. My ride is year 2010, 28k miles, excellent condition cabriolet 2 (non-S)...kelly blue book says it is $47k. I think it might go down to around $42k and stop there. I think the targa would have the same depreciation curve. |
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Economy / Economics / Re: Earning interest on your crypto
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on: February 09, 2021, 10:10:16 PM
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I currently hold these coins--BTC, ETH, LTC, XMR, and ZEC.
I tend to agree with what most of you guys are saying. There is a real risk of losing my coins if I lend it out.
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Economy / Economics / Earning interest on your crypto
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on: February 09, 2021, 09:22:22 PM
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So, I have small amount of cryptocurrency I bought and mined over the years and will HODL, but I am seeing news articles and advertisements about earning interest on my coins. And the returns are not bad--5 to 7% per year.
It seems BlockFi is the front runner. They seem to have partnerships with the major US crypto exchanges, e.g. Gemini and Coinbase (I am in the USA). I am also googling and trying to educate myself.
But, I have serious concerns about learning my crypto to 3rd parties. What happens if the institution that I loan to, for example BlockFi, goes brankrupt? I assume I will lose my crypto. Would it be safer to loan to an exchange and I don't run that risk?
What are your experiences so far with loaning your crypto?
What place do you loan to, or recommend loaning your crypto to?
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: BTC back to All time high ..did you buy ?
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on: February 09, 2021, 11:11:56 AM
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Me stupido sold at approximately $37.400 in order to buy again at a lower price. Well, let's just say that didn't really go according to plan. I'm planning to buy back the exact amount I sold, if the price ever falls back to that level.
Yah, I've done that, and learned the hard way. Bitcoin price swings are just so unpredictable and can go either direction. And it can go hard some times, like to day. I now just buy and never sell. I buy more on dips. Don't trade. So, I bought when it hit 38k (then it went 41k, and then fell), and so I bought more at 33k, and at 31k, and at 44k now. Hehe you get the picture. |
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Economy / Goods / Re: I'll buy one Porsche 911 for 1BTC.
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on: February 09, 2021, 10:58:51 AM
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Just a reminder. Offer is valid only up to Nov 16, 2022.
To be honest by Nov 16, 2022, you might be able to buy 2 new 911's, or one new Turbo or GT3, if so inclined. Bitcoin price just goes up and up. May I suggest maybe another idea is to get a 997.2 manual for 1/2 a bitcoin, perhaps a GTS or turbo. 997.2's are last of the true Porsche before drive by wire. I think 997.2's (year 2009-2012) will be collectibles. I have a 2010 997.2 convertible and it is a joy to drive. No real issues with it so far with the car |
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Alternate cryptocurrencies / Altcoin Discussion / Re: Ripple is dying
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on: January 21, 2021, 01:05:14 AM
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If this SEC lawsuit didn't give you pause to really look at the risk of XRP, think further long term and you see that XRP is very risky.
The SEC's job is to protect wall street and protect investors. I do believe the SEC has a valid case because of the fact of how XRP was pre-mined and distributed, the fact of the strange corporate structure between the founders, ripple the corporation, ripple labs, and XRP token, and the fact that 60% of the tokens are still held by ripple. It seems very much like an equity security and not a crypto asset or crypto currency.
But think further out, and I don't see what use case XRP solves. The US Office of the Controller of the Currency has now allowed US banks to use blockchain to settle financial transactions, so why would banks need to use XRP tokens now? They can just settle using trusted, decentralized cryptocurrencies like BTC or LTC, or stables coins or soon to issued central bank digital currencies, all on reputable blockchains like etherem, cardona, etc etc.
XRP is just too risky. Get out!
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Alternate cryptocurrencies / Mining (Altcoins) / Re: I Bought 150+ GPUs for Ethereum mining. Think I'm Insane?
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on: July 03, 2019, 12:25:13 PM
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OP I salute your grit.
I think OP's goal was to get more ETH with his current ETH stash, since he did not sell his existing ETH but used them as collateral for the loan to get equipment to mine more ETH.
He would've been successful if crypto prices stayed the same, OR prices dropped. But this bull run has wrecked his plan. He will not get mucho ETH; he will get less ETH than he expected.
He may still come out ahead, albeit with a longer ROI window, so long as he can mine enough $$ to repay his loan to get back his ETH.
Not a bad play OP. Very creative. But who would've though a big bull market would come NOW.
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