Wonder how they arrived at the decision for the amount of five shares for a whole bitcoin. Is it just because they wanted to be able to offer a million shares on the bitcoins they control? Or would there be some other reasoning behind it?
//EDIT: Also, having tried to digest some of the vast amounts of information in the S-1 filing, it seems brokers can only buy shares in blocks of 50,000, which would be 10000 bitcoins, so investors wouldn't be buying directly from the trust:
The Shares may be purchased from the Trust only in one or more blocks of [50,000] Shares (a block of [50,000] Shares is called a Basket). The Trust will issue Shares in Baskets to certain authorized participants (Authorized Participants) on an ongoing basis as described in “Plan of Distribution.” Baskets will be offered continuously at the net asset value (NAV) for [50,000] Shares on the day that an order to create a Basket is accepted by the Trustee. The Trust will not issue fractions of a Basket.
“Authorized Participant”—A person who (1) is a registered broker-dealer or other securities market participant such as a bank or other financial institution which is not required to register as a broker-dealer to engage in securities transactions, (2) is a direct participant in DTC, (3) has entered into an Authorized Participant Agreement with the Trustee and the Sponsor and (4) has established an Authorized Participant Custody Account. Only Authorized Participants may place orders to create or redeem one or more Baskets.
New York Times have got an article
here too, but I'd say the CoinDesk one is actually more informative.
