Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust now reports to the Us Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), putting it one step closer to public trading.

The annunciation

Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust manages investment in Bitcoin on behalf of investors, exposing them to the coin's potential for gains while mitigating risks. The January. 21 annunciation advertises the trust every bit the start of its kind to written report to the SEC.

Grayscale'south full Form 10 is available here. Subsequent to this registration, the trust volition need to file quarterly and annual reports with the SEC, which will so become publicly available. In response to an inquiry from Cointelegraph, Grayscale declined to specify simply when it volition file the first of these reports but said the house volition do so in accord with SEC regulations.

A Grayscale representative clarified to Cointelegraph that Grayscale Bitcoin Trust is open to accredited investors during the Trust's private placement periods for new shares. GBTC, however, is the public quotation symbol for the Trust's shares traded amid retail investors on the secondary market.

In the announcement, the house makes particular mention of accredited investors — a controversial designation. Owning or purchasing shares from the Trust's private placement gives them the advantage of quicker liquidity with a reduced property period of half-dozen months.

Accredited investors

Grayscale's announcement arrives as the SEC considers changes to its accredited investor designation, couched in the 1934 act'due south Section 12(g).

Effectively, the SEC trusts the wealthy or executive course to invest with insight and thereby minimal risk. Conversely, the Main Street investor, the decades-old moniker assumes, lacks this insight. Under SEC exemptions companies may offering shares to accredited investors without filing all documents that the SEC requires of publicly-listed companies. Critics castigate this exemption as favorable to the rich while being exclusionary of everyday investors, whom former SEC commissioner Michael Piwowar dubbed "forgotten investors."

UPDATE Jan. 22 21:00 UTC: This commodity has been updated with comments from a Grayscale representative shared with Cointelegraph after publication.