The Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, the highly anticipated exchange traded fund sponsored by twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, will trade on the Bats ETF Marketplace when the product comes to market.
The Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust “made plans to switch its exchange listing to BATS Global Markets from the Nasdaq, according to a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday,” reports Paul Vigna for the Wall Street Journal.
The trust’s sponsor is Math-Based Asset Services LLC, which was formed in mid-2013. Bitcoin is a type of decentralized digital currency based on a peer-to-peer network and can be exchanged through computers internationally without a financial intermediary. The system was first introduced by developer Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.
Related: Winkdex Bitcoin Index Debuts
“Bats ranks as the top exchange operator for ETF trading with the Bats Exchanges – BYX, BZX, EGDA, EDGX – executing 24.7% of all ETF trading for the month of April 2016. Bats has been the #1 U.S. market for ETF trading and the #2 U.S. market for overall equities trading for every month of 2016,” according to the Kansas City-based exchange operator.
[related_stories]In February 2014, Winklevoss Capital launched the Winkdex, a bitcoin index that will eventually be used for a planned bitcoin ETF, “COIN,” which was first proposed in 2013 but is still waiting on regulatory approval.
“The Winklevoss brothers also plan to use another of their bitcoin-related properties, the Gemini Trust Co., as the bitcoin trust’s custodian, according to the filing. Gemini, which operates a digital-currency exchange, received a trust charter from the New York State Department of Financial Services in October and will hold the bitcoins underlying the trust,” according to the Journal.
Gemini is the third bitcoin-related institution to acquire regulatory approval and the second to be granted a charter by the DFS to a bitcoin-related business. Circle Internet Financial received the first BitLicense and ItBit received a charter last year.
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