Here's Our Take On Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTCMKTS:GBTC)

Whatever anyone thinks about the digital currency space, and in particular bitcoin and the blockchain, it's becoming impossible to ignore. The price of bitcoin is at or near all term highs against the USD and other majors, and the digital currency has a market capitalization in excess of $21 billion. Take the digital currency space as a whole, and this market capitalization rises to more than $30 billion – a threshold that was just crossed this week.That's more than twice the value of Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR).It's still an incredibly tough space against which to pick up an exposure, however. For someone that doesn’t want to buy bitcoin itself, there just aren’t that many options available that offer direct exposures to the rise and fall in the digital currency's value. Sure, there are a few publicly traded companies that operate in the bitcoin ecosystem – we've covered some of them here at Insider Financial in recent weeks – but these are indirect exposures at best, and some are fraught with risk factors not-inherent to the currency itself.There is one, however, that looks to offer about as direct an exposure as a trader or investor can hope for, without having to set up a bitcoin wallet.The stock is Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTCMKTS:GBTC).Bitcoin Investment Trust is a cryptocurrency-focused investment vehicle backed by Glenn Hutchins, a co-founder of private-equity firm Silver Lake, and it's operated by an entity called Grayscale (we'll come back to this shortly). Shares in the Trust track the bitcoin market price, less fees and expenses, and in doing so, allow for a pretty accurate (in terms of rising and falling with the underlying bitcoin price) exposure to bitcoin's appreciation.Some readers might have caught the attempt (and resulting failure) by the Winklevoss twins last month to get a bitcoin based ETF past the SEC. The Commission wasn’t having it (stating uncertainty associated with the fact that many bitcoin companies are based outside the US), and that decision is now under appeal.Grayscale is trying to follow up with its own ETF (which it sees Bitcoin Investment Trust developing into) and there's a decision pending with the SEC, set for announcement on September 22. Some suggest that the fact that this one's already traded on a public exchange strengthens its chances. Nobody really knows. One thing we do know, however, is that GBTC is running up, and is up more than 11% across the last few days alone. Why? Because bitcoin is running up in parallel.If bitcoin continues to run, therefore, we expect this one to run further. Will bitcoin continue rising? Near term probably. When the digital currency reaches highs, mainstream media generally picks up on the fact, and draws speculative dollars towards the space on the added coverage. These speculative dollars' boost price, and this should – in turn – boost the value of Bitcoin Investment Trust.We said we'd come back to Grayscale, so let's do that.There's some concern over the ownership of Bitcoin Investment Trust, and how this ownership might play into the SEC's decision come September. Basically, Grayscale is owned by an entity called Digital Currency Group, or DGC, and DGC is also the owner of the industry's leading news outlet – a website called Coindesk. Some feel that this affiliation will cause concern for the SEC as to a potential conflict of interest, and that this might make Bitcoin Investment Trust's efforts to relist as an ETF un-approvable.There's some credence to this, but it's one of those things – there's no real way of us knowing.Right now though, it doesn’t matter too much. We've pegged this one as a near term runner as it gains to mimic the underlying price advance we'll likely see as bitcoin hits the headlines in popular news/media.We will be updating our subscribers as soon as we know more. For the latest updates on GBTC, sign up below!Disclosure: We have no position in GBTC and have not been compensated for this article.