Remember the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust? Arguably the most talked about exchange traded fund that has yet to come to market, twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winkelvoss filed plans for the Winkelvoss Bitcoin Trust in mid-2013, but the ETF has yet to debut.
Bitcoin enthusiasts looking to display their affinity for the digital currency via the ETF wrapper do not need to fret because the brothers assured investors that the ETF is “alive and well.” The comments were made in an interview with Bloomberg TV’s Erik Schatzker from the Money 2020 conference in Las Vegas.
“We’re still going through the regulatory process. Any ETF is a long process to get approved and, in this particular case, we’re dealing with a very innovative product, which is a digital asset which has not been done before,” Tyler Winklevoss told Schatzker.
Importantly, they noted that there has been nothing to lead them to believe that the regulatory process for the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust is going any faster or slower than with a more traditional ETF.
The brothers did note that the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust is being geared along the same lines as physically-backed commodities ETFs such as the SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEArca: GLD) and the iShares Silver Trust (NYSEArca: SLV). Those ETFs give investors exposure to an asset class, in those case gold and silver, without the ability to redeem shares of the trust for direct access to that asset. [Commodity, Currency Debate Swirls Around Bitcoin ETF]
The brothers also told Schatzker that they remain long bitcoin and continue to control about 1% of the market. Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency based on a peer-to-peer network and can be exchanged through computers internationally without a financial intermediary.