Grayscale Investments

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust is a digital currency investment product that individual investors can buy and sell in their own brokerage accounts. On January 21, 2020, it became an SEC reporting company, registering its shares with the Commission and designating the Trust as the first digital currency investment vehicle to attain the status of a reporting company by the SEC. This will allow accredited investors who purchased shares in the Trust’s private placement to have an earlier liquidity opportunity, as the statutory holding period of private placement shares would be reduced from 12 months to 6 months, according to SEC rules.

The Grayscale Investment Trust debuted as The Bitcoin Investment Trust on Sept. 25, 2013 as a private placement to accredited investors and, later on, received FINRA approval for eligible shares to trade publicly. This means that investors have access to buy and sell public shares of the Trust under the symbol GBTC. Grayscale Investments calls it a traditional investment vehicle with shares titled in the investor's name. Although the Trust is not an ETF itself, Grayscale says it's modeled on popular commodity investment products like the SPDR Gold Trust, a physically backed ETF.