BIT is second market's version of COIN without the long SEC approval process. It's supposed to go live this quarter, per Barry, about 6 weeks ago.
So far BIT has only been opened to rich high net worth people. Once BIT gets listed [on the OTC market] anyone will be able to buy it, basically the same thing as COIN.
COIN of course will be the premium version
A frustrating aspect of bitcoin is that there is essentially no data about the "bitcoin economy". Every indicator that we would need to predict the price and evaluate its investment potential is hidden by the anonymity and globality of the protocol and by the private and unregulated character of the companies. There are practically no public audits, market statistics, open policies, ... One can extract lots of numbers from the blockchain, but most of the traffic there is just coins trashing around between addresses that belong to the same person, and no one can tell how much meaningful transactiosn are there, and what they are. Investing in bitcoin is like jumping over a cliff in a foggy night, without seeing the other margin. It cannot be a rational decision, only a statement of blind faith, that only fools would do.
In particular, we do not really understand how SMBIT operates, whether those numbers are real investments by the public or or self-investments by the managing company, who are the clients and why they choose to invest in SMBIT rather than buy bitcoin directly. The contract terms are revealed only to investors that they have approves, it seems. Are they required to strictly hold 0.1 BTC per share, and buy them immediately? Or do they have some leeway, to wait a few days for the best price? Or are they only bound to return the right amount of dollars at the end, as defined the current market price?
I don't understand how they can sell their shares to US residents and citizens without approval of the SEC, even without an open market. Perhaps they don't, and only sell to non-Americans? Is the SMBIT managing company based in the US, or in a foreign country?
Someone claimed on this thread that they have been ordered by the SEC to stop liquidating their shares, but can still sell them -- which does not make sense to me. Is that true? If so, what is the reason? Would they tell investors if that is true?
BIT should bring in a lot of new investor money and increase liquidity.
I do not see why having an open market for SMBIT shares (or even the possibility of trading them over-the-counter) would bring more money to the bitcoin economy. OK, people would be able to invest less than 25'000 USD on SMBIT shares --- but, at that level, they could buy bitcoin at the exchanges instead. Clients who have SMBIT shares would be able to liquidate them in the market instead of with SMBIT; but they could do that with bitcoin too. Since the liquidation value of SMBIT shares is pegged to the BTC price, and they pay no interest or dividends, their market value cannot be much higher than their face value. The market for SMBIT shares is likely to be a lot less liquid than that of bitcoin.
By the way, the Falcon bitcoin fund closed because of low demand:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-08/falcon-global-capital-closes-bitcoin-fund-because-of-slow-demand.htmlGABI is having problems with their banks. Does anyone know how Pantera's PBP is doing? And what about that fund in Malta, that Matonis was advertising a couple months ago?
