Company: HODL
Filing Date: 2025-03-26
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000930413-25-000995
Chunk: 194

Company: VanEck Bitcoin ETF
Filing Date: 2025-03-26
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 194
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 holdings in bitcoin, new sources of demand for bitcoin) or based on the
dissemination of false and misleading information; (6) manipulative activity involving purported “stablecoins,” including
Tether (for more information, “—Prices of bitcoin may be affected due to stablecoins (including Tether and US Dollar
Coin (“USDC”)), the activities of stablecoin issuers and their regulatory treatment”); and (7) fraud and manipulation
at bitcoin trading platforms. The effect of potential market manipulation, front-running, wash-trading, and other fraudulent or
manipulative trading practices may inflate the volumes actually present in crypto market and/or cause distortions in price, which
could adversely affect the Trust or cause losses to Shareholders.

Over the past several years, some digital
asset trading platforms have been closed due to fraud and manipulative activity, business failure or security breaches. In many
of these instances, the customers of such digital asset trading platforms were not compensated or made whole for the partial or
complete losses of their account balances in such digital asset trading platforms. While, generally speaking, smaller digital
asset trading platforms are less likely to have the infrastructure and capitalization that make larger digital asset trading platforms
more stable, larger digital asset trading platforms are more likely to be appealing targets for hackers and malware and may be
more likely to be targets of regulatory enforcement action. For example, the collapse of Mt. Gox, which filed for bankruptcy protection
in Japan in late February 2014, demonstrated that even the largest digital asset trading platforms could be subject to abrupt
failure with consequences for both users of digital asset exchanges and the digital asset industry as a whole. In particular,
in the two weeks that followed the February 7, 2014 halt of bitcoin withdrawals from Mt. Gox, the value of one bitcoin fell on
other trading platforms from around $795 on February 6, 2014 to $578 on February 20, 2014. Additionally, in January 2015, Bitstamp
announced that approximately 19,000 bitcoin had been stolen from its operational or “hot” wallets. Further, in August
2016, it was reported that almost 120,000 bitcoins worth around $78 million were stolen from Bitfinex. The value of bitcoin and
other digital assets immediately decreased over 10% following reports of the theft at Bitfinex. In July 2017, FinCEN assessed
a $110 million fine against BTC-E,