Company: GBTC
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-029408
Chunk: 267

Company: Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 5
Chunk 267
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 of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. Our audit included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audit also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that our audit provides a reasonable basis for our opinion. 

Critical Audit Matter 

The critical audit matter communicated below is a matter arising from the current period audit of the financial statements that was communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relates to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective, or complex judgments. The communication of a critical audit matter does not alter in any way our opinion on the financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matter below, providing a separate opinion on the critical audit matter or on the accounts or disclosures to which it relates. 

Evaluation of the existence and rights over the investment in Bitcoin

As discussed in Notes 2 and 3 to the financial statements, the Trust accounts for its investment in Bitcoin at fair value in accordance with its classification as an investment company for accounting purposes. As of December 31, 2024, the fair value of the Trust’s investment in Bitcoin was $19.2 billion, with a respective cost basis of $2.9 billion. 

We identified the evaluation of the existence of and the Trust’s rights to Bitcoin, including the risk that the Trust’s investment in Bitcoin may not be owned by the Trust, as a critical audit matter. A high degree of auditor judgment was involved in determining the nature and extent of the procedures performed and audit evidence obtained to assess the existence of and the Trust’s rights to its investment in Bitcoin, as control and access over the Bitcoin was provided through private cryptographic keys stored using third-party custodial services. In addition, auditor judgement was required to evaluate the sufficiency of audit evidence obtained. 

The following are the primary procedures we performed to address this critical audit matter. We evaluated the design and tested the operating effectiveness of certain internal controls over the existence of the Trust’s investment in Bitcoin and the Trust’s rights over its investment in Bitcoin, including controls over the comparison of the Trust’s records of Bitcoin held to the third-party custodial records