Another Fork in The Chain; Bitcoin Turns 9

October 31, 2017

News last week of the latest bitcoin fork, bitcoin gold, understandably generated considerable interest in cryptocurrency markets. For those unfamiliar with the term, a “fork” represents a change to bitcoin’s software creating two separate versions of the blockchain. In this case, the bitcoin gold fork created a split in the bitcoin network resulting in a new digital currency (a prior example of this occurred last summer with the creation of bitcoin cash).

As a result of this event, the FBC Bitcoin Trust now holds bitcoin gold alongside its existing bitcoin holdings. Our policy in these situations is to follow the chain with the greatest proof of work. So, assuming bitcoin maintains its preeminence after this event, the Trust will make an orderly disposition of bitcoin gold and either distribute the proceeds of such a disposition to Unitholders or reinvest the proceeds in additional bitcoins, consistent with the terms laid out in our Offering Memorandum (September 2017).

Finally, it is worth noting that, nine years ago today, Satoshi Nakamoto published his now famous white paper envisioning, “A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution”, which gave rise to bitcoin. Bitcoin’s progress since then has been remarkable and the FBC Bitcoin Trust has participated in that upside, gaining 48% since the Trust’s first close on 28 September 2017 (Series S – See table for individual share class performance). First Block Capital, the manager of the FBC Bitcoin Trust, is proud to be the first registered investment fund manager in Canada dedicated solely to cryptocurrency investments.

URL