Barry Silbert's Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT), which recently revealed that it has been approved to be publicly traded on the OTC Markets, has filed audited financial and disclosure statements.
Each share in BIT represents the value of one tenth of a bitcoin, as determined by its traded value on Bitstamp. The Trust can issue an unlimited number of shares, in "baskets" of 100-share blocks. As of December 31, 2014, there were 1,382,400 Shares issued and outstanding. As of September 30, 2014, the Trust held 106,414.94804239 bitcoins, then worth roughly $41.8 million.
The 202-page OTC Markets Information and Disclosure Statement details the business and management structures and share information, as standard. In the Business of Issuer section, a thorough description of the Bitcoin industry is provided. Included are the uses of Bitcoin, its technology, history, Regulation and a review of various risk factors. These include "cancer nodes", double spending risks, 51% attacks and other exploits of the core protocol.
A second document, a 13-page annual report containing audited financial statements, was prepared by Ernst & Young. It sums up the Trust's annual performance ending December 31, 2013, which was roughly one month after bitcoin's great rise and a period of extreme Volatility . Total fund returns, at that time, were over 100%. Most of the aforementioned 1.38 million shares (over 700,000) were created during that quarter.
