Company: HODL
Filing Date: 2025-11-13
Form Type: 10-Q
Source: 0000930413-25-003438
Chunk: 228

Company: VanEck Bitcoin ETF
Filing Date: 2025-11-13
Form: 10-Q
Item: Part II, Item 1A
Chunk 228
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 as a practical matter, be beyond the ambit of U.S. regulators. As a result, trading
activity on or reported by these digital asset trading platforms is generally significantly less regulated than trading in regulated
U.S. securities and commodities markets, and may reflect behavior that would be prohibited in regulated U.S. trading venues.

The bitcoin market globally and in the United States is not subject
to comparable regulatory guardrails as exist in regulated securities markets. Furthermore, many bitcoin trading venues lack certain
safeguards put in place by exchanges for more traditional assets to enhance the stability of trading on the exchanges and prevent
“flash crashes,” such as limit-down circuit breakers, as demonstrated by the October 2025 Flash Crash. As a result,
the prices of bitcoin on trading venues may be subject to larger and/or more frequent sudden declines than assets traded on more
traditional exchanges. Tools to detect and deter fraudulent or manipulative trading activities such as market manipulation, front-running
of trades, and wash-trading may not be available to or employed by digital asset trading platforms, or may not exist at all.

Bitcoin trading platforms may be exposed to fraud and manipulation.

The SEC has identified possible sources of fraud and manipulation in
the bitcoin market generally, including, among others (1) “wash trading”; (2) persons with a dominant position
in bitcoin manipulating bitcoin pricing; (3) hacking of the Bitcoin network and trading platforms; (4) malicious control of the
Bitcoin network; (5) trading based on material, non-public information (for example, plans of market participants to significantly
increase or decrease their holdings in bitcoin, new sources of demand for bitcoin) or based on the

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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