Disclaimer: I know nothing about EFTs and TLDR the Winklevii document.
I wonder what the tax implications of the Winklevii moving their BTC into this EFT trust are. They would not need to pay any capital gains tax, since they've not realised their profits. But what about the shares they are selling?
There is no tax implication for them or their corp. the corp does not pay taxes when issuing shares. That money goes to the corp (not to you directly). If they then pay themselves a salary from that money, then they'd pay taxes on it.
I guess the difference is that if they just sold the BTC, they would pay taxes on any realized gains. So, actually, I guess this is the perfect way of selling BTC at a profit without paying taxes. The money is technically in the corp, but they can still buy themselves pretty things with it.
What it does is make the Bitcoins into an ETF. There are well established rules for ETFs for taxes and accounting, so it hides the fact that your investment is in Bitcoins making the accounting easy, its just another ETF in your list of ETF investments.
Whether it is wise to do so is an entirely separate question.
Also, the ETFs are the #1 mechanism that the leviathans use to manipulate currencies (such as gold). So the existence of an increasing number of ETFs that can move the market however a central bank desires it to move creates additional issues.
