Where are the coins for Winkelvoss Trust & 2nd Market Bitcoin Investment Fund?

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Recent history is littered with worthless derivatives and financial shenanigans.  Bitcoin promises a solution but ...  Winklevoss trust and Second Market Bitcoin Investment Fund promise safety and security but where are the coins?  None of their paperwork seem to show it.  If anyone has a public address for their coins please post it.  Otherwise these "Trusts" are nothing more then empty paper.

you are right. investing in the trust is not holding btc.

it is like investing in a gold etf, you dont hold gold...

There was a guy in Nevada once that did this but with silver. Now, what was his name again?

[theonewhowaskazu]

Recent history is littered with worthless derivatives and financial shenanigans.  Bitcoin promises a solution but ...  Winklevoss trust and Second Market Bitcoin Investment Fund promise safety and security but where are the coins?  None of their paperwork seem to show it.  If anyone has a public address for their coins please post it.  Otherwise these "Trusts" are nothing more then empty paper.

you are right. investing in the trust is not holding btc.

it is like investing in a gold etf, you dont hold gold...

There was a guy in Nevada once that did this but with silver. Now, what was his name again?

Just FYI I have no idea what you're referring to.

[bobdude17]

How would they be multi billionaires if they sold the coins in the trust?  The buyers would be rich how does that make them rich?  Also I never claimed they are frauds but there are many different frauds.  They may have gotten the investment first then went to buy coins.  Also how do you know the coins aren't hypothecated to many other trusts?  You can have plenty of trusts and show the same coins to many different auditors.  Again why wouldn't the trusts show their coins?

If you haven't understood the value of these trusts, how important they will be(are) to bitcoin gaining mainstream acceptance, and badly the trust holders want to shake bitcoin's stigma of illegal activity by now, then I'm just not going to be able to get to you.

I concede.

[windjc]

Either bitcoin stays small and it doesn't much matter if Ernst and Young audits anything or bitcoin is huge then there certainly will be enough money to "bribe" Ernst and Young.  Bribes in the current market world are very subtle.  Read the Lehman stuff and all the trusts offering paperwork.  They are responsible for nothing.  They can make all kinds of repo, and other purchase agreements and then oops we never got the bitcoins or oops we lost the private key, oops some other country outlawed bitcoins, oops the coins were tainted and we have to turn them over to cops.  Insiders will know first and sell shares first.

And if it gets big they will be multi billionaires. Why risk going to prison when they would insanely rich legally? Why risk their reputation? Again, the incentives just aren't there. They have much more incentive to play above the table, and so does E&Y.

Look, I understand that is much safer to just own your coins, fucking obviously.

But saying that the proposed ETF and and the SecondMarket Trust are frauds because they didn't post their address so you could check it on blockchain.info is absolutely ludicrous.
These investment vehicles are in a different class. People want a regulated trust they can throw their hedge funds and IRAs at and have somebody for their lawyers to sue if something goes wrong with that trust.

You really really need to punctuate your posts with "Biatch!"

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Recent history is littered with worthless derivatives and financial shenanigans.  Bitcoin promises a solution but ...  Winklevoss trust and Second Market Bitcoin Investment Fund promise safety and security but where are the coins?  None of their paperwork seem to show it.  If anyone has a public address for their coins please post it.  Otherwise these "Trusts" are nothing more then empty paper.

you are right. investing in the trust is not holding btc.

it is like investing in a gold etf, you dont hold gold...

There was a guy in Nevada once that did this but with silver. Now, what was his name again?

Just FYI I have no idea what you're referring to.

http://www.mynews3.com/content/news/story/James-Ray-The-Silver-King-Houston-dead-at-66/PBuDmtPW60WSB9kDsWc3rg.cspx

[DeathAndTaxes]

It's hard to verify gold holdings because of security concerns and metal authenticity testing.  Bitcoin holdings are easy to verify.  Sign a message from the address.  Wouldn't surprise me if these "Trusts" throw out some BS "security" "auditing" excuse for not revealing the actual address.  I read the winkelvoss prospectus.  No address in there that I could find.  http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1579346/000119312513393903/d562329ds1a.htm

Why would a trust which doesn't yet exist and own no coins list an address?

This is our empty Bitcoin addres ....

Also anyone thinking it will be a single address needs to get their head checked.  The ETF allows direct redemption I doubt the funds want to unlock a wallet with a single address containing potentially hundreds of millions of dollars someday for every redemption.    Risk management and all that.   I mean MtGox doesn't use a single address why would an ETF?

[Phinnaeus Gage]

C. Investment in Bitcoins
At [    ], 2013, the Trust owned [    ],000 Bitcoins, with a carrying value (lower of cost or market basis) of $[    ].

WINKLEVOSS BITCOIN TRUST

[    ],000,000 WINKLEVOSS BITCOIN SHARES

Until [    ], 2013 (25 calendar days after the date of this prospectus), all dealers effecting transactions in the Shares, whether or not participating in this distribution, may be required to deliver a prospectus. This requirement is in addition to the obligations of dealers to deliver a prospectus when acting as underwriters and with respect to unsold allotments or subscriptions.[/size]

[Hfleer]

Recent history is littered with worthless derivatives and financial shenanigans.  Bitcoin promises a solution but ...  Winklevoss trust and Second Market Bitcoin Investment Fund promise safety and security but where are the coins?  None of their paperwork seem to show it.  If anyone has a public address for their coins please post it.  Otherwise these "Trusts" are nothing more then empty paper.

True and I think holders could reasonably expect to be shown the address where their coins are being held.  I wonder what progress the ETF is making currently?

[User705]

How would they be multi billionaires if they sold the coins in the trust?  The buyers would be rich how does that make them rich?  Also I never claimed they are frauds but there are many different frauds.  They may have gotten the investment first then went to buy coins.  Also how do you know the coins aren't hypothecated to many other trusts?  You can have plenty of trusts and show the same coins to many different auditors.  Again why wouldn't the trusts show their coins?

If you haven't understood the value of these trusts, how important they will be(are) to bitcoin gaining mainstream acceptance, and badly the trust holders want to shake bitcoin's stigma of illegal activity by now, then I'm just not going to be able to get to you.

I concede.

I think you and possibly others need to concede that you don't want bitcoin to change anything.  You're operating on the greater fool theory hoping to sell on your bitcoins to someone down the line for more fiat then you spent on them.  And that's an ok motivation.  These trusts are the exact opposite what bitcoin is for and it's fine to have the desire to make money just don't pretend these trusts are of any benefit besides raising the exchange rate.  What's the point of decentralization if it's all bunched into ETFs.  If most users don't mine or even hold wallets and just buy ETF shares then all users are at the mercy of a few big miners that will mine.  If most "investors" don't bother to know the ins and outs of even basic crypto then they are at the whim of developers that wish to change the protocol.  These risks are even spelled out in the SEC prospectus.

[User705]

It's hard to verify gold holdings because of security concerns and metal authenticity testing.  Bitcoin holdings are easy to verify.  Sign a message from the address.  Wouldn't surprise me if these "Trusts" throw out some BS "security" "auditing" excuse for not revealing the actual address.  I read the winkelvoss prospectus.  No address in there that I could find.  http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1579346/000119312513393903/d562329ds1a.htm

Why would a trust which doesn't yet exist and own no coins list an address?

This is our empty Bitcoin addres ....

Also anyone thinking it will be a single address needs to get their head checked.  The ETF allows direct redemption I doubt the funds want to unlock a wallet with a single address containing potentially hundreds of millions of dollars someday for every redemption.    Risk management and all that.   I mean MtGox doesn't use a single address why would an ETF?

So they should never post addresses with the coins that are supposed to back this ETF?  Gold ETFs at least release gold bar serial numbers.

[theonewhowaskazu]

How would they be multi billionaires if they sold the coins in the trust?  The buyers would be rich how does that make them rich?  Also I never claimed they are frauds but there are many different frauds.  They may have gotten the investment first then went to buy coins.  Also how do you know the coins aren't hypothecated to many other trusts?  You can have plenty of trusts and show the same coins to many different auditors.  Again why wouldn't the trusts show their coins?

If you haven't understood the value of these trusts, how important they will be(are) to bitcoin gaining mainstream acceptance, and badly the trust holders want to shake bitcoin's stigma of illegal activity by now, then I'm just not going to be able to get to you.

I concede.

I think you and possibly others need to concede that you don't want bitcoin to change anything.  You're operating on the greater fool theory hoping to sell on your bitcoins to someone down the line for more fiat then you spent on them.  And that's an ok motivation.  These trusts are the exact opposite what bitcoin is for and it's fine to have the desire to make money just don't pretend these trusts are of any benefit besides raising the exchange rate.  What's the point of decentralization if it's all bunched into ETFs.  If most users don't mine or even hold wallets and just buy ETF shares then all users are at the mercy of a few big miners that will mine.  If most "investors" don't bother to know the ins and outs of even basic crypto then they are at the whim of developers that wish to change the protocol.  These risks are even spelled out in the SEC prospectus.

Its mind boggling that you people are OK with Bitcoin CFDs, with the fact that every major exchange operates without disclosing its Bitcoin addresses, etc..., yet you get all angry when an audited ETF is created. Seriously, its like if you stick a financial sounding name on anything some people here just get pissed off.

The 'point' of decentralization if its bunched into ETFs is that the people who want to and hold liquid usd so they can purchase 'real' BTC that they store in addresses that they are the only controller of the private key, can. Its not to force everybody into doing this, because in many cases it just isn't practical. It isn't to 'force' everybody to mine either, or to 'force' everybody to know their crypto.

In fact, BTC is designed such that only a small group of people need to mine, and only a small group of people need to know the crypto behind BTC. If it wasn't designed as such, it would fail. Thats why the world has these fun little things called 'professions' so that not everybody needs to understand everything.

[darkmule]

Recent history is littered with worthless derivatives and financial shenanigans.  Bitcoin promises a solution but ...  Winklevoss trust and Second Market Bitcoin Investment Fund promise safety and security but where are the coins?  None of their paperwork seem to show it.  If anyone has a public address for their coins please post it.  Otherwise these "Trusts" are nothing more then empty paper.

Nonsense.  Floating a prospectus that is nothing more than empty paper would be a crime and people would go to prison.  There are third party audits of this kind of fund, ensuring that this actually exists.

The Winklevoss twins have a reputation within the financial community and pulling off an outright scam would utterly destroy this reputation, rendering any other assets whose value depends on their name worthless as well.  This would cost them a lot more than their relatively small investment in Bitcoin.

It is a reasonably good guess that the seed assets are the coins they bought months ago, and I don't know if anyone did any blockchain research to find out which coins, in particular, they acquired at first.  I'd guess they acquired them somewhat stealthily to avoid driving up the price while they were acquiring it, but don't know for sure.

There is very little cause to doubt they actually acquired the coins.  There would be absolutely no purpose to doing so.  I wouldn't mind seeing the transactions on the blockchain, but it's more of a matter of curiosity than of tinfoil hat paranoia.

[User705]

Setting aside my personal opinion that the modern legal ownership interpretation is inapplicable to bitcoin. If an ETF exists backed by bitcoins in an address no one knows do the ETF owners really own the bitcoins or do they simply own a promise of bitcoins?   Also why would anyone want to "invest" in the exact opposite of what bitcoin is supposed to solve - counter party risk?

[DeathAndTaxes]

Setting aside my personal opinion that the modern legal ownership interpretation is inapplicable to bitcoin. If an ETF exists backed by bitcoins in an address no one knows do the ETF owners really own the bitcoins or do they simply own a promise of bitcoins?   Also why would anyone want to "invest" in the exact opposite of what bitcoin is supposed to solve - counter party risk?

If you can hold direct you probably wouldn't.  For many though (likely not people reading this) the ability to buy BTC as easily any other stock or ETF is attractive.  I am sure the fund will come up with a way to transparently show they have 1BTC for every x shares issued.   The funds ability to attract investors and thus fees depends on it.

[byronbb]

Both the SecondMarket Trust and the ETF(will be) are audited. By 3rd parties.

These are non-concerns.

Why would you need to PAY an auditor to verify coins in a bitcoin address?  

Are you serious? Why would you PAY an auditor to verify an SEC approved ETF that will share the same the same space as SPDR? I don't even know where to begin with that...
Like they would hold all the coins in one publicly viewable address?!

Why not? Why have a 3d party auditor, when everyone can do it for you collectively?

[theonewhowaskazu]

Both the SecondMarket Trust and the ETF(will be) are audited. By 3rd parties.

These are non-concerns.

Why would you need to PAY an auditor to verify coins in a bitcoin address?  

Are you serious? Why would you PAY an auditor to verify an SEC approved ETF that will share the same the same space as SPDR? I don't even know where to begin with that...
Like they would hold all the coins in one publicly viewable address?!

Why not? Why have a 3d party auditor, when everyone can do it for you collectively?

Because ETFs, and ETFs have a standard, and not all ETFs can be verified collectively. Otherwise, you'd have to get the SEC to recognize Bitcoin's unique qualities, etc... You don't want to start making exceptions with this type of thing. Thats exactly how scams get started. Its funny how everyone here is always talking tinfoil hat, but basic standards to prevent fraud are laughed at.

[darkmule]

Setting aside my personal opinion that the modern legal ownership interpretation is inapplicable to bitcoin. If an ETF exists backed by bitcoins in an address no one knows do the ETF owners really own the bitcoins or do they simply own a promise of bitcoins?   Also why would anyone want to "invest" in the exact opposite of what bitcoin is supposed to solve - counter party risk?

Actually, if one considers the Bitcoin community itself and the Bitcoin network as participants, the possibility of failure of the network or the technology is a form of counterparty risk itself.  People who know nothing about the underlying technology are used to the risks of trusting some fund manager, though, or someone whose reputation would require them to make good on their representations.  They're not so equipped to judge whether the underlying math is sound, to secure their own Bitcoin wallet, or to judge whether or not the whole thing will just dry up and blow away.

Almost anything in an ETF, whether a foreign currency or package of foreign currencies, raises the same question as to why the people investing in the fund just don't invest in the underlying asset.  Because it's messy, to them, and they don't want to deal with it directly, but they do want to participate in and profit from the appreciation in value of the asset.

Really the question almost comes down to the question "why have ETFs at all for anything?"  Apparently, people have decided they want these instruments and the market will make them available for purchase.

[User705]

ETFs take advantage of economies of scale.  Gold ETF can cost less in storage and insurance.  Currency ETF has much cheaper exchange rates vs small scale buying and selling.  Also don't get me wrong I don't have any tinfoil theories that this is a scam however anyone investing in this without seeing the coins is exposing himself to additional risk.  If an employee embezzled the coins the insiders and their trader friends would likely know 1st and you would find out last.  Also if a bitcoin participant understands so little as to be unable to do basic transactions and cold storage it's pretty clear they can't possibly be an informed "investor" in bitcoin.  Do you disagree?

[theonewhowaskazu]

ETFs take advantage of economies of scale.  Gold ETF can cost less in storage and insurance.  Currency ETF has much cheaper exchange rates vs small scale buying and selling.  Also don't get me wrong I don't have any tinfoil theories that this is a scam however anyone investing in this without seeing the coins is exposing himself to additional risk.  If an employee embezzled the coins the insiders and their trader friends would likely know 1st and you would find out last.  Also if a bitcoin participant understands so little as to be unable to do basic transactions and cold storage it's pretty clear they can't possibly be an informed "investor" in bitcoin.  Do you disagree?

I disagree, because lots of those people are investing in Bitcoin, knowing what it is, and generally how it works (maybe not the nitty-gritty, but there are many people who want to invest in Bitcoin due to the economics of it, not the technical side), but are unable to because their money is locked  in a brokerage due to IRA, or other reasons. Also, they could just not want to have to deal with a 'shady' online exchange, or deal with all the delays that entails. Also, you have to take advantage of the various features an ETF has other than just a method of trade, just because it comes built-into brokerages, like leverage, options, etc...

[User705]

IRA investing seems to be a good point for tax mitigation if you are ok with exposing your bitcoin ownership.  Options couldn't hurt either.  But wouldn't you want you know where these coins are or no?