Michael Sonnenschein of Grayscale explains the company's push to convert its Bitcoin Trust into a spot ETF, with an SEC decision expected in early July. Grayscale also launched a European UCITS ETF and has become a major institutional entry point for Bitcoin exposure.
Questions this video answers
About 3.4% of all Bitcoin outstanding.
Over 800,000 accounts across all 50 states.
17 digital currency funds in the U.S.
The decision comes to an end in early July (year implied 2022).
Over 5,000 letters had been submitted.
Chapters
Hi, my name is Joe. Here for another Cointelegraph interview with someone who needs very little introduction, Michael Sonnenschein from Grayscale Investment Trust. Michael, how are we doing today?
I'm great. Thanks for having me.
Yeah. Welcome to the wef. Welcome to Switzerland. I hear you've been here for a few weeks now, particularly in light of the successful European etf.
Thank you. Yeah. We have been in Europe for a little while as a team, but this is really kind of a milestone moment for grayscale as a whole. We just recently launched our first European product, so the Grayscale Future of Finance. UCITS ETF now trading on the London Stock Exchange, the Deutsche Borsa, the Borsa Italiana. Really excited to make the push into the European market. We've been doing a lot of research with partners and a lot of our service providers to figure out how the Grayscale team wants to activate in Europe. Okay. And what better time than to not only have that, but also be at the World Economic Forum. Right. Where obviously crypto is a big, big part of the conversation this year.
Interesting. So have you seen that transition or that development in terms of, you know, three years ago, four years ago, crypto was almost like a dirty word. And here we are today, you know, the world's largest custodian of bitcoin is sat in one of these lovely rooms with the mountains behind. How have you seen this evolve?
There's no question that, you know, institutional adoption continues to grow. When we talk to investors about recent events, whether it's what recently happened with Terra pullback in prices, investors are not feeling phased by this pullback. If anything, they're thinking about this opportunistically. Maybe some investors never thought bitcoin to be back down at these levels before. And I think every time we see the ecosystem get challenged this way, whether it's a one off event or something that persists for longer, it really demonstrates its resiliency. And as a result of that, the ecosystem grows and gets healthier and stronger, and certainly stronger than perhaps before these events transpired.
Excellent. Okay, so institutions are buying. That's the sort of sentiment I'm feeling right now.
Sure.
Okay. And I know there was a figure floating around last year that said that 80% of institutional money flows through into GBTC, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. Would you be able to provide us with a quick update on this figure and perhaps explain why it's such a gigantic amount of money that flows through into gbtc?
Yeah. So the grayscale bitcoin Trust, as you said, world's largest bitcoin fund. And it has been around since 2013 when we first launched it. We haven't wavered in our commitment to what GBTC is supposed to be. Ultimately, it's supposed to convert to an ETF. So today, with about 3.4% of all Bitcoin outstanding sitting inside the fund, for a lot of investors, institutional and retail investors alike, GBTC has become one of the most easily accessible ways for them to put crypto or put bitcoin exposure in their brokerage accounts, their retirement accounts. It's owned inside mutual funds, it's owned inside ETFs looking for Bitcoin exposure. And today in the US alone, there are over 800,000 accounts that own shares of GBTC. And that's spread across all 50 states. Okay, so we have been on now an eight year cycle of continuing to progress GBTC from a private placement to a publicly quoted security to now an SEC reporting company, and ultimately we hope, to an ETF. And that's what we're working on proactively with the SEC.
So what is it about Grayscale that means that 80% of this money is coming through you? What makes greyscale get grayscale so special?
I think for a lot of investors, the ability to buy crypto, transfer it, store it safe, keep it, these are all challenges that were certainly in crypto in its earliest days, when grayscale first got started in 2013. And for a lot of investors, those challenges still exist today. Certainly the ability to gain access to crypto has become easier and easier, which is fantastic as the ecosystem has continued to grow. But particularly as you think about institutional investors who have prime brokers and custodians, the ability to own the exposure to bitcoin in the form of a security that has a Q, sip, audited financials, is an SEC reporting company, produces tax documents. Those are the kinds of elements that they're used to seeing when they do make investment decisions. And so GBTC has really given them a really low access point. No barriers to really access the crypto ecosystem.
Very good. I mean, you're ticking all the boxes there of all these sort of necessary hoops to jump through, let's say, to get this spot ETF in the US and as you mentioned mentioned, the successful European launch, you're approaching 10 years of a track record of taking investor money and putting it into crypto. What's the key? What's the magic, I don't know, the magic solution to get this spot ETF over The line.
Where to start? Well, first and foremost, this is a company wide initiative. Every single person at Grayscale is devoting all of their time and energies towards converting GBTC to an etf. Whether that's internal working groups, external working groups with service providers, partners, regulators, trade associations, you name it. We have gone far and wide to advocate for our investors. I think today the issue in front of us is actually not so much us, but instead actually it's in front of the sec. This is really an investor protection issue. And as I mentioned, with almost a million accounts in the US alone that own shares of gbtc, you would certainly think that a regulator, when we, as a product manager, an investment sponsor, is asking to move the ECF further into the regulatory perimeter of the SEC to have further oversight, that the SEC will step up, do the right thing and bring this product into the market and give investors those additional protections and disclosure closures.
Okay.
We're at an interesting tipping point though throughout this process because as you know, the SEC's approval or denial decision around GBTC's conversion comes to an end in early July. So over these next couple of weeks, it's really important that investors continue to advocate. The Grayscale team will continue to do everything possible to continue to advocate for them. But so far there have been over 5,000 letters that have been submitted by investors into the SEC to advocate for this conversion. And we've made it so simple to do. All investors have to do is go to grayscale.com comment and they're able to very easily fire off an email to the sec, state the reason why they want an ETF and have it be, you know, converted, have GBTC converted into an etf. And those, those opinions, those, those letters, those matter. The SEC looks through every single one of them.
Is it just Americans that can do that?
No, it's global in nature.
Remember that guys.
It is global in nature. You know, I think this is an important issue not just for current GBTC holders, pass holders, future holders. I think for a lot of investors this is also about embracing innovation. We just had the White House executive order that talked about American competitiveness, these very issues. And with Bitcoin ETFs for spot, Bitcoin ETF, seeing them approved in other jurisdictions around the world and still not having One in the U.S. you know, a lot of investors have been very patient and feel that the time is now.
Okay, Okay. I was going to ask when, but I mean, I think that's a question we receive a lot and it's going to be hard to answer, and we've talked a lot about the spot etf. But, Michael, what's keeping you personally motivated? What's keeping you excited about working in this space besides the spot etf?
Honestly, it's the people at Grayscale. We have the most motivated, thoughtful, deliberate, ethical, driven folks that are showing up every day and building the Grayscale business brick by brick. We now have 17 digital currency funds in the U.S. one equity ETF in the U.S. we just launched our first equity ETF in the European market. So as our team continues to grow and expand, when we zoom out, it's unbelievable to see the journey that we've been on over the last eight years, and I truly feel like we're just getting started. Wow.
Okay. We're still early.
We are.
Thank you so much, Michael. This is a Coin Telegraph interview. Thank you very much.
