There is no ceiling to the Trust’s expenses that the Sponsor will pay. However, the Sponsor retains the right to cause the Trust to pay indemnification and extraordinary expenses, and these Trust expenses are not covered by the Management Fee. The Trust may incur certain extraordinary expenses including, but not limited to, any
non-customary
costs and expenses including indemnification and extraordinary costs of the Administrator and Auditor, costs of any litigation or investigation involving Trust activities, and workout and restructuring and indemnification expenses.
Shareholder Subscriptions
The minimum initial subscription amount is $25,000 and an existing Shareholder may make additional subscriptions in a minimum amount of $10,000, subject in all cases to increase, decrease and waiver of such requirements by the Sponsor in its sole discretion. All subscriptions are made directly to the Trust with processing assistance from the Fund Administrator. Subscriptions may be funded through payment in US dollars or through
in-kind
contributions of Portfolio Crypto Assets
(“In-Kind
Investments”), or both at the sole discretion of the Sponsor. The Sponsor may accept stablecoins on a
basis as determined in the discretion of the Sponsor.
In-Kind
Investments are valued using the same digital asset prices as per the Trust’s valuation policy at any given valuation date as of 16:00 ET on the date of the subscription. Once an
In-Kind
Investment has been delivered to the Trust in connection with a subscription funding requirement, an investor cannot cancel its subscription regardless of the valuation established for the
in-kind
contribution. For the period January 1, 2021 to September 30, 2021, the Trust accepted
In-Kind
Investments from Shareholders of $95,459,698. For the quarter ended September 30, 2021, the Trust issued 4,445 Shares in exchange for
In-Kind
Investments of 4 BTC and 8 ETH.
The Trust values
in-kind
contributions to the Trust using the same valuation methodology that it uses to calculate the Trust’s NAV on the day of the subscription. A contribution
in-kind
will be valued, in dollar terms, using the same prices for each digital asset that are used to value the assets in the Trust on that day, and that value is divided by the Trust’s
per-share
NAV as calculated on that day in order to calculate the number of Shares purchased by the Subscriber in the transaction. The Trust has not made any
in-kind
distributions or liquidated a Shareholder’s
pro-rata
distribution in order to reduce additional regulatory costs of the Shareholders for any period presented. The goal of the conversion of either dollars (cash) or digital assets accepted to the Trust
in-kind
is to leave the portfolio in a position where its holdings and weightings are closely representative of the constituents and weightings of the Trust’s benchmark index. This process requires the use of quantitative portfolio management techniques to compare the Trust’s existing holdings and weightings, plus the new net assets of the Trust after accounting for the incoming dollars (cash) and /or digital assets received
in-kind,
to the constituents and weightings of the index in order to calculate the amounts and quantities of each digital asset to purchase (or sell) in order to bring the Trust’s portfolio into a position that its holdings and weightings are closely representative of the holdings and weightings of the Trust’s benchmark index The Trust then has at its disposal multiple venues to acquire and dispose of digital assets, including trading venues (known as exchanges), direct trading counterparties (known as “OTC desks”), and trading technology solutions that aggregate liquidity from multiple trading venues. Trade execution and portfolio management is dynamic and complex. The Sponsor must exercise judgement, take into account recent experience and market conditions, as well as the size of the trades being executed, settlement procedures at each venue, types of assets and their availability on such platforms prior to determining on which venue to execute each trade. The Sponsor attempts to purchase or sell each asset in each instance at a price that is close to the price used for calculating the Trust’s NAV (and the Index’s daily price for which the time used is 16:00 ET), while also minimizing market impact and reducing operational and settlement risk. There is no guarantee that the Sponsor will be able to trade digital assets at or near the benchmark price, and there are a number of other factors aside from price slippage that inform best practices in trade execution.
The Trust generally accepts initial and additional subscriptions weekly on such dates as the Sponsor may determine in its sole discretion. The Trust may from time to time halt subscriptions for a variety of reasons, including in connection with forks, airdrops, other similar occurrences, or if the Sponsor determines based on either market developments or business related operating reasons (such as unanticipated challenges trading in the market for Portfolio Crypto Assets, a business desire to limit the number of investors in the product for administrative, cost, or