666 Third Avenue, 9th Floor New York, NY 10017 | ||
MATTHEW BABINSKY mbabinsky@vaneck.com | ||
(212) 293-2048 | ||
Comment 1. | Please supplementally explain how the Fund would value bitcoin futures positions if the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the “CME”) halted trading. | ||||
Response 1. | We supplementally inform the Staff that the Fund intends to fair value its bitcoin futures positions if the CME halted trading. Van Eck Absolute Return Advisers Corporation (the “Adviser”) believes that the Fund could potentially use the spot price of bitcoin for pricing purposes if the CME halted trading of bitcoin futures. The spot price underlying the CME bitcoin futures is the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate, or the BRTA Index on Bloomberg. The Adviser expects that it would also take into consideration the nature of the halt. Bitcoin contracts have moved to dynamic circuit breakers and would be expected to re-open after a two-minute halt during intraday price moves of 10% or more in an hour. The Adviser could also potentially look to the Coinbase bitcoin futures contract trading on the Coinbase Derivative Exchange for pricing/settlement information since the Coinbase bitcoin futures settlement prices and CME bitcoin futures settlement prices have been highly correlated given recent historical settlement data. | ||||