[I go to school by bike and did not learn good English, please forgive my broken English.]
Currently, Bitcoin is a heat topic. There are a few ways to invest in bitcoin (in Hong Kong)
1. GBTC- a bitcoin investment trust, more information here.
2. BITCOINXB- another way to invest/ bet on bitcoin though exchange. Notice that it is not listed in US but in Sweden, one may find BITCOINXB dominated in both EUR and SEK.
3. Buy bitcoin directly and store it on wallet/ trading platform.
For GBTC, it is basically a trust with certain amount of Bitcoin. Say, as at 31 AUG 2017, each share of GBTC holds 0.09242821 Bitcoin. It is trading in HEAVY premium (100% premium!?) in the exchange. Buy GBTC and hold it as a long term investment is likely to unperformed bitcoin price. When there is more instrument to invest in Bitcoin being available in the exchange, eg COIN ETF, Bitcoin future by CBOE x Gemini, one may expect the premium of GBTC will be narrow and GBTC will be trading at NAV or slight above NAV due to its taxation advantage by US investors.
Days before, GBTC dropped by 20% in a day while the bitcoin price is around the same. Notice that the premium maybe topped. Although some investors who bought GBTC months before enjoy the increment of both bitcoin price and the premium, example, those who read and followed to buy should understand the risk of premium narrowing.
BITCOINXB is trading in slight premium (~3% as my last check month before). It would be a good tool to invest in Bitcoin if one do not want to hold and take the risk of missing it. In order to minimize the forex risk, one may convert the SEK or EUR balance into USD or HKD.
If you are interested in buying Bitcoin directly, you may go to localbitcoin or gatecoin. I have traded on both platform and have good experience. (Sorry I don't provide referral CODE here to help you and eat commission. please check it in other site, I'm sure tons of people are willing to help you.)
Bottom Line:
IMHO, if someone point a gun into my head and force me to recommend how to do a bitcoin investment/ bet, I would say GBTC is something one should AVOID. Assume you have an Interactive Brokers account (or some brokers that allow you to buy in SW ex), BITCOINXB is a good choice to keep all investment in one account and no need to worry about missing the cold wallet private key or other reasons for bitcoin missing/ being stole. Buying bitcoin directly is also a good choice if you like to learn more about the bitcoin. Also the price would be better than BITCOINXB.(don't forget the cost of holding BITCOINXB and GBTC, the amount of bitcoin hold by every share of BITCOINXB/ GBTC is reducing everyday)
Disclosure: I am long Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and interested in other alt-coin, however, for alt-coin I have no plans to trade any positions within the next 72 hours. I also have position in GBTC and BITCOINXB. Currently, Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash share less than 5% of my net worth.
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PS, Asset allocation blog: http://valueinvestor2.blogspot.hk/
worth to read
