Company: HODL
Filing Date: 2025-03-26
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000930413-25-000995
Chunk: 196

Company: VanEck Bitcoin ETF
Filing Date: 2025-03-26
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 196
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 manipulative trading activity has occurred on certain bitcoin trading platforms. For
example, in a 2017 paper titled “Price Manipulation in the Bitcoin Ecosystem” sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Cyber
Research Center at Tel Aviv University, a group of researchers used publicly available trading data, as well as leaked transaction
data from a 2014 Mt. Gox security breach, to identify and analyze the impact of “suspicious trading activity” on Mt.
Gox between February and November 2013, which, according to the authors, caused the price of bitcoin to increase from around $150
to more than $1,000 over a two-month period.

The
potential consequences of a digital asset trading platform failure or failure to
prevent market manipulation could adversely affect the value of the Shares. Manipulative trading or market abuse could create
artificial or distorted prices, cause a loss of investor confidence in bitcoin, adversely impact pricing trends in bitcoin markets
broadly, and cause losses from an investment in Shares of the Trust.

Bitcoin trading platforms may be exposed
to front-running.

Bitcoin
trading platforms on which bitcoin trades may be susceptible to “front-running,” which refers to the process when
someone uses access to confidential information, or technology or market advantage to get prior knowledge of upcoming transactions.
Front-running is a frequent activity on centralized as well as decentralized exchanges. By using bots functioning on a millisecond-scale
timeframe, bad actors are able to take advantage of the forthcoming price movement and make economic gains at the cost of those
who had introduced these transactions. The objective of a front runner is to buy a chunk of tokens at a low price and later sell
them at a higher price while simultaneously exiting the position. Front-running can occur via manipulation of transaction validation
and mining processes, or the theft or misappropriation of confidential information by insiders. To extent that front-running occurs
in bitcoin markets, it may result in concerns as to the price integrity of digital asset exchanges and digital assets more generally.

Bitcoin trading platforms may be exposed
to wash trading.

Bitcoin trading
platforms on which bitcoin trades may be susceptible to wash trading. Wash trading occurs when offsetting trades are entered into
for other than bona fide reasons, such as the desire to inflate reported trading volumes. Wash trading may be motivated by non-economic
reasons, such as a desire for increased visibility on popular websites that monitor markets for digital assets so as to improve
their attractiveness to investors who look for maximum liquidity, or it may