Bitcoin FAQs - ICCU - Idaho Central Credit Union

Boost Your Bitcoin Knowledge

Here at Idaho Central we’ve partnered with NYDIG* to compile the most frequently asked questions in simple, easy to understand terms so you can feel like an expert when it comes to buying, selling, and managing bitcoin.

Bitcoin Fundamentals
Bitcoin Transactions
Bitcoin as a Open Source Monetary System
Bitcoin Mining
Other Digital Assets
Regulatory, Business and Future Considerations

Frequently Asked Questions

Bitcoin Fundamentals

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is the world’s largest and most recognized digital asset. Its creation was the first successful attempt at creating a distributed digital currency, one that is controlled by its users, rather than a central entity or issuing authority, like a central bank or financial institution.

Bitcoin is an open-source monetary system – that is, a system for storing and transmitting an asset of value whose underlying code is fully open to the public. This system allows bitcoin (lowercase “b”), the native digital asset of the Bitcoin network (uppercase “B”), to be sent securely between users over the internet without the need of a middleman. Transactions are verified and recorded on a public ledger called a blockchain through a process called mining.
Why was bitcoin developed?

Bitcoin, the first digital asset to achieve a strong network effect in its adoption, was developed to create a digital peer-to-peer payment system that did not require transaction confirmations from third parties or for its users to otherwise trust third parties. It was also developed to have store-of-value properties, encouraging users to preserve their wealth in the digital asset.
What is the blockchain?

The blockchain, also known as a ledger, is an ever-growing record of all transactions across the Bitcoin network. This ledger is public and available for anyone to inspect and verify, although the identities of participants is not included on the ledger. Transactions between participants are batched together in blocks, processed simultaneously, linked chronologically, and secured by cryptography.
Is the Bitcoin network secure?

Bitcoin relies on previous innovations in computer science, such as digital signatures and cryptographic hashing, and combines them in a unique manner that is reinforced by economic incentives. Digital signatures provide strong control of assets, while cryptographic hashing and the economic incentives of mining assure that no one entity controls the network and that transactions between users are valid. These features give Bitcoin unprecedented security and transparency.
Where are the blockchain and bitcoin stored?

Any user who wishes to run Bitcoin software can download it freely and become a node, or network participant. Bitcoin’s blockchain is stored on this software, as well as the private keys, or wallet, to facilitate the receiving, holding, and send of bitcoins. Bitcoin’s are not held in a user’s wallet, rather it contains the passwords, or private keys, to move bitcoins from one address to another.

Users can share public addresses, which are derived from private keys, to send and receive bitcoins. These addresses do not contain any identifiable information, only the amount of bitcoin they hold. No one can verify the identity of an address’s owner unless the owner provided their address to the blockchain reviewer. In addition, knowing the bitcoin held on a public address does not grant someone control over the bitcoin at that address. The only way to move the bitcoin and transact is with access to the address’s private key.
What is a block, and how are blocks created? Who creates them?

Blocks are a new batch of transactions that have been grouped together and appended to Bitcoin’s growing ledger of transactions called the blockchain. New blocks are created and therefore new transactions are confirmed through a process called mining. Bitcoin miners process bitcoin transactions into blocks by solving a complex cryptographic problem posed by the Bitcoin protocol through computation. On average, a new block is created every 10 minutes. For creating new blocks, miners are rewarded with new bitcoins created by the protocol itself as well as fees paid by those sending bitcoins.
Are bitcoin transactions anonymous and therefore more attractive to criminal activity?

The blockchain is commonly known as pseudonymous, not completely anonymous. The network does not display the specific names of individuals who own bitcoin. However, the Bitcoin protocol is open-source and publicly available for all, so anyone with internet access can view and verify all addresses and their respective bitcoin ownership on the blockchain. With network growth and more institutional adoption, regulatory and compliance frameworks were established to ensure the legitimacy of participants. Today, most transactions and addresses can be traced back to specific individuals using blockchain tracing technology. This technology relies on AML/KYC screening and the accumulated knowledge of large bitcoin holders on the blockchain, such as exchanges. Government agencies can trace individual address owners by requesting PII from exchanges, trace bitcoin movements from exchanges to wallets, and use I.P. addresses and telecommunication history to identify individuals. Anonymous transactions on the dark web are infrequent today, and all bitcoin providers on US territory are required to be AML/KYC compliant. A study released in January 2020 by blockchain tracing analytics firm Chainalysis found that only 0.34% of all cryptocurrency transaction volume was crime-related in 2020.
How could the creator of bitcoin remain anonymous?

Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym for an unknown individual or group, created Bitcoin leveraging decades of insights established by academics and computer scientists on the power of cryptography, decentralized systems, and failed attempts at creating a digital form of money. Satoshi Nakamoto stepped away from active development of Bitcoin in 2010. The last public message from Satoshi Nakamoto was on the Bitcointalk forum on December 12, 2010, and Nakamoto’s last confirmed private communication was on April 26, 2011 to Gavin Andresen, who was entrusted as Bitcoin Core Maintainer of the project. Over the years, there have been many attempts to uncover the identity of Nakamoto, who revealed little personal information in their communications. Several people have been linked to their identity, including Nick Szabo, creator of bit gold, Dorian Nakamoto, a Japanese American man living in California, and Hal Finney, the first person to use the Bitcoin network. Although it is unlikely we will ever know the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the growing adoption of the protocol and continuous development by thousands of open-source developers around the world demonstrates that the network does not require Satoshi Nakamoto to reveal their identity for the protocol to remain functional.
How many bitcoins are in existence today?

Out of a total fixed supply of 21 million bitcoins, there are approximately 18.7 million bitcoins in existence, as of June 30, 2021. There are an additional 900 new bitcoin created daily, on average. Each bitcoin is divisible by 100,000,000 units, called Satoshis, similar to how a dollar is divisible by 100 cents.
How are bitcoin and other digital assets valued?

Short-term, the price of bitcoin and other digital assets are influenced by market supply and demand and trading activity. In the case of bitcoin, there is no centralized organization that determines its price. Long-term, as the Bitcoin network’s adoption grows, investors will look to different valuation methodologies. For example, Metcalfe’s Law, commonly used by software investors to track a network’s adoption rate, will be looked at to gain insight into future price predictions.
What is a public key?

Public keys are used to create addresses from which an individual can send or receive bitcoin. They are also used to determine if transactions are genuine. To determine if a transaction is genuine on the Bitcoin network, one must sign a transaction. Signing a transaction is a process that requires the bitcoin sender to match the public key with its corresponding private key. The sender can match the private key and public key because the public key is mathematically derived from the private key. But unlike a private key, a public key does not necessarily need to be kept secret.
What is a private key?

A private key is the password that allows one to send bitcoin from one address to another. To unlock the ability to send bitcoin, a private key is used to create a signature – a confirmation that the public key, where the bitcoin is stored, and the private key cryptographically match. The network can verify if a private key matches a public key because a unique public key is mathematically derived from a unique private key. Private keys must be kept secret because the private key gives an individual the power to send bitcoin from an address.
Who issues private keys, and what prevents someone from hacking into and gaining access to these issued keys?

A private key, or the password that enables access to one’s bitcoin, is simply a randomly generated number between 1 and 2256. Because the possibilities are so vast, the probability of another individual choosing the same number at random is effectively zero. Individuals, wallet providers and custodians are able to create private keys from which public keys and addresses can be derived on the Bitcoin network. The network uses the ECDSA, Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm, to derive a public key from a private key.

The only method of storage that prevents a hacker from accessing one’s keys through digital means is cold storage. Cold storage is a method of storing private keys on a device that has never been connected to the internet nor to a battery/electricity. The risk of cybertheft is eliminated when private keys are stored in cold storage – no private information is stored on any online computer or server with this method.
What happens to bitcoin when the private keys have been lost? Does it simply reduce the total amount of bitcoin (21 million) that circulate, or can they ever be retrieved?

Lost private keys simply reduce the amount of bitcoin in circulation as they become irretrievable. The blockchain will recognize how many bitcoins are at a given address, but it will be impossible for the owner to send that bitcoin to another address without the private key. The immutable nature of the technology and its security, which relies upon private keys, is a key reason for bitcoin’s broad adoption. It is estimated that approximately 3 million bitcoins are lost from circulation.
Is there a possibility that technology will be developed to identify “lost private keys”?

There is no technology today that can recover a lost private key. An encryption algorithm, called Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) developed by academics and accepted as a standard by the National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST) ensures that a private key cannot be generated from a public key ECDSA is a one-way mathematical operation that makes reversion of private keys from public keys impossible. Bitcoin addresses, derived from public keys, rely on another layer of protection, another one-way mathematical operation that cannot be reversed, called SHA-256.
What does it mean to hold bitcoin in hot and cold storage?

Storage: Hot storage refers to a wallet that is or has been connected to the internet. This means that the private keys securing an owner’s bitcoins may have been exposed to other parties online. That server may be owned by a company or run by an individual.

Cold Storage: A cold storage wallet is a bitcoin wallet that has never been connected to the internet. It is “air gapped”, which means the hardware storing encrypted information has never had a physical connection to the internet. Therefore, a private key that is stored on a cold storage wallet has never been stored on any server online.
How is bitcoin theft possible with blockchain technology?

Blockchain technology is only the mechanism to record a history of transactions without needing a centralized database. It is not technology that can be used for theft. In fact, it is used to enforce the security of everyone’s bitcoin. By recording all genuine transactions across thousands of computers, it decreases the risk of a bad actor hacking a singular database where all information is centralized.

Bitcoin theft is only possible if a bad actor can access one’s private keys. Private keys are used to authenticate genuine transactions, so access to one’s private keys would allow a bad actor to authenticate a bitcoin transaction from the victim’s address to the bad actor’s address.

In the context of cybertheft, hackers could either gain access to one’s login information on an exchange or hack a server which stores private keys. If private keys are stored in cold storage, cybertheft is impossible. This is because cold storage devices are air gapped and never connected to the internet or battery powered. They are therefore at no risk of cybertheft.

Bitcoin Transactions

What is the transaction cost to transfer bitcoin today?

Bitcoin transaction costs vary depending on the usage of the network. If bitcoin is transacted on payment channels built on top of the Bitcoin protocol, transaction fees can be as low as a fraction of 1 cent. If bitcoin is transacted directly on the blockchain, transaction fees can range from a few cents to tens of dollars, depending on how long a bitcoin sender is willing to wait to have their transaction processed. Users of the network can offer higher transaction fees to have their transactions processed faster than those who offer lower transaction fees.
Why would I, as a transactor, add additional bitcoin?

Bitcoin, the first digital asset to achieve a strong network effect in its adoption, was developed to create a digital peer-to-peer payment system that did not require transaction confirmations from third parties or for its users to otherwise trust third parties. It was also developed to have store-of-value properties, encouraging users to preserve their wealth in the digital asset.
What is the purpose of a bitcoin ATM?

Bitcoin ATMs allow customers to purchase bitcoin with cash without having to link their bank accounts. Bitcoin ATMs accept cash and send bitcoin to a customer’s personal digital bitcoin wallet via a scanned QR code corresponding to that customer’s blockchain address.
Is the Bitcoin network secure?
Most digital assets around the world are converted into fiat currency through an exchange. If transacting on NYDIG’s platform, the following steps are executed to convert a digital asset into fiat currency:
1. The retail customer places a sell order and sees bitcoin debited from their account.
2. The Banking Partner can decide to make the proceeds available in the retail customer’s account immediately or delay availability until settlement with NYDIG.
3. NYDIG executes the transaction.
4. NYDIG sends dollars to the Banking Partner.
When a customer uses a platform, such as Coinbase, is the private key held by that platform?

Yes. Many exchanges, such as Coinbase, will use a mix of hot and cold storage for storing customers’ bitcoin. Hot storage protects private keys on devices or servers connected to the internet. This method of storage is less secure than cold storage because cold storage mitigates the risk of cybertheft by storing private keys on devices that have never been connected to the internet.
Is the price on one exchange different from the price on a different exchange?

Like many assets, prices generally differ slightly from one exchange to another across jurisdictions. For example, the price of bitcoin on a US exchange may differ from the price of bitcoin on an exchange in Singapore. However, typically, the price of bitcoin will not vary significantly across exchanges.

Bitcoin as as open-source monetary system

Who determines the 21 million fixed supply of bitcoin?

Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator(s) of Bitcoin, developed the protocol to establish a total minable supply of 21 million bitcoin. The fixed supply continues to be reaffirmed by the tens of thousands of bitcoin nodes operating the protocol daily. To date, the Bitcoin network has never had its minable supply altered by the users.
How can bitcoin be considered “hard” when there appears to be nothing behind it?

The “hardness” of an asset is determined by the rate of its inflation and potential for its devaluation over time relative to other assets. Bitcoin’s minable supply is fixed at 21 million bitcoins, and over time, its inflation rate, or its supply growth, will trend to 0%. The next “hardest” asset is gold, which has maintained a constant inflation rate of 1-2%. For reference, the monetary supply of the USD was inflated by over 25% in 2020 alone. The potential for bitcoin’s devaluation over time is mitigated by the network’s decentralization and the inability for an individual to make unilateral supply changes to the protocol.
What are the advantages of bitcoin over other assets?
Bitcoin is now seen by many investors as a better store of value than gold or other forms of money. This is due to the fundamental properties of bitcoin that no other asset in the world has. Bitcoin is:
- Scarce: It has a limited supply, like gold, but is even more scarce as the supply of bitcoin is fixed and capped at 21 million. The issuance of new bitcoin will eventually go to zero, unlike any other asset in the world.
- Digital: It is easier to transmit across the world than gold or other forms of money. It also has a global network effect, like email or Facebook. Bitcoin is expected to appreciate as more people use and adopt it.
- Decentralized: Bitcoin is not controlled by a single person, organization, or government, rendering it nearly impossible for any one person or group of people to make decisions for the network without true democratic approval.
- Secure: As the value of bitcoin grows, so does its security. As more miners and computers running the Bitcoin software come online, it becomes increasingly difficult for a bad actor to change the blockchain’s transaction history or its underlying code. Miners and users are all incentivized to maintain the network’s integrity and security
What is the “halving event”, and is it good or bad for bitcoin?

Every 210,000 blocks, roughly every 4 years, the Bitcoin protocol reduces the block reward it pays to miners by 50%. This event is known as “halving.” When this occurs, the block reward is halved overnight creating a supply shock in the Bitcoin network. In each of the past three halving cycles, the market price rose over months following the halving events as the market reacted positively to the supply shocks. The halving effect is good for the network because it reinforces the scarcity and value of bitcoin.

Bitcoin Mining

What is bitcoin mining?

Mining is the process of spending computing power to process transactions, secure the network, and keep participants in the network synchronized. Anybody can become a bitcoin miner by running software with specialized hardware. Mining software monitors transactions broadcasted through the peer-to-peer network and performs computer calculations to process and confirm these transactions. This process is referred to as “mining” as an analogy to gold mining. Mining generates transaction fees in addition to new bitcoin, and over time, transaction fees will amount to a larger share of their reward as the total supply of bitcoin reaches closer to the 21 million maximum supply. The network is also designed to be fully decentralized with miners operating in all countries, such that no individual has control over the network.
Are miners still mining bitcoin? How is new bitcoin retrieved by a miner without taking it from someone?

Miners are still receiving bitcoin rewards from the Bitcoin protocol for processing transactions at a rate of 6.25 bitcoin per reward, as of May 2020. With a supply cap of 21 million bitcoin, there are approximately 2.3 million bitcoins left to be mined. The mining of all remaining bitcoin will continue until approximately the year 2140. Miners can also acquire bitcoin, but they are not required by the network to acquire bitcoin to process transactions.
Who exactly are the “miners”? Are they people, computers, or computer programs?

Miners are computers specifically designed to process transactions on the Bitcoin network employed by individuals, groups of people, or companies. Today, many mining operations function under corporate entities, some of which are public, including Riot Blockchain and Marathon Patent Group.
How long does it take a miner or miner group to mine bitcoin?

Bitcoin transactions are processed in blocks every 10 minutes, on average. These processed transactions deliver rewards in the form of newly mined bitcoin and transaction fees. Therefore, new bitcoin can be generated approximately every 10 minutes.
How do we trust a miner? Are they somehow validating their results for everyone else to see?

Bitcoin mining requires a large amount of capital invested in hyper-specialized infrastructure. Miners are incentivized to process genuine bitcoin transactions and secure the network because of the amount of capital they have invested into bitcoin mining. Miners are trusted to maintain proper operating protocols in part by their incentive structure. Mining is also a highly competitive activity and industry. If a miner decides not to process transactions, they will not receive the mining reward or transaction fees. Additionally, due to Bitcoin’s open-source nature, all transactions processed by miners are independently verified on the public blockchain.
What are the math problems used for other than to process transactions and create bitcoin?

Solving the math problems is called hashing which uses an algorithm called SHA-256. Miners use the SHA-256 algorithm to participate in a form of lottery where miners continuously guess the correct answer, or “hash”, that can properly validate the next block. In the process of creating mechanisms by which to validate transactions and produce bitcoin rewards, the math problems are used to secure the Bitcoin network and guarantee that each bitcoin can only be spent once. Ensuring the security and integrity of the network with these math problems is vital to the network’s ability to remain decentralized and trustless.
What does “solving a math problem” mean in the context of mining?

“Solving a math problem” in mining means miners need to solve a cryptographic problem for the protocol to allow a miner to add a block of transactions to the blockchain. This process of trial and error is designed to produce a proof of work, a piece of data that is difficult to produce but easy to verify. That piece of data is used to verify the validity of transactions.

Producing a proof of work involves combining text from the previous block, data from the newly minted block, and an integer, called a nonce, in a cryptographic hash function, called SHA-256. The goal is to produce an output called a hash, a 64-character string of numbers and letters that begins with a specific number of zeros.
Who asks the “math question”? Who determines the correct answer?

The protocol asks the “math question” and determines the correct answer. If the value of the hash, the output of the cryptographic hash function generated by a miner’s computers, is lower than a number specified by the protocol, called a target, the new block is considered valid. If not, the nonce is changed by the mining computers until a hash is produced that is lower than the target. Because the text from the previous block also includes a hash of the previous block, the previous block’s hash is used as an input for the next block. As a result, this proof of work is chained together from block-to-block, making it exceedingly difficult to revert or redo.
Can you clarify the difference between transaction fees and bitcoin rewards from mining?

The miner of a block is paid two fees: newly created bitcoin issued by the Bitcoin software itself (called the block reward), and transaction fees, which are paid by the senders of bitcoin. Bitcoin network’s block reward was initially set at 50 bitcoin per block, but over time, the block reward has been reduced to 6.25 bitcoin per block. Every 210,000 blocks, roughly every 4 years, the Bitcoin protocol reduces the block reward it pays to miners by 50%, until the block rewards will eventually drop to 0 in the year 2140. At that point, all 21 million bitcoins will have been created, and miners will only be rewarded with transaction fees.
Does every block in the chain have to be accessed to add a block to the end?

The blockchain must contain a record of all transactions to be trusted globally without a third party’s confirmation. Therefore, all blocks are accessible by the miners to add an additional block to the blockchain. Additionally, individual miners are not able to revise data on previous blocks in the blockchain, making the blockchain immutable.
What is an example of the math equation being solved?

Miners are working to achieve a hash with a numeric value lower than a specified number, called the target. If a hash attempt produces a number less than the target, the miner wins the bid to create the block and add it to the blockchain. A miner will attempt to guess the correct hash numerous times until the hash is less than the target. Examples of hash outputs are provided below:

Theoretical Hashes:
Message: NYDIG
SHA-256 Hash: f08562886ddce54745bd29b1dbf5e4b1ae54c34718938265a6b36b22917e8445

Message: NYDIG!
SHA-256 Hash: 45dc5108edee25df658f1300b0 a45c358243751e7bc3c1571aabb58fb4f36e80

Hashes on the Blockchain:
Genesis Block – Jan 3, 2009:
000000000019D6689C085AE165831E934FF763AE46A2A6C172B3F1B60A8CE26F

Block 683,981 – May 17, 2021:
00000000000000000007D8BCB15D2D50622E939EE6bED32CF4D5CC1BED666EE3

Other Digital Assets

What are other digital assets?

There are over 10,000 digital assets listed on exchanges across the world. However, NYDIG believes bitcoin is the only digital asset that operates on a truly decentralized network with a fixed supply, making it the most trustworthy of all digital assets. It is more appropriate to consider bitcoin as a store of value in its own category, and the other cryptocurrencies as potentially transient with varying levels of utility.
Is it possible for someone to create a better digital asset than bitcoin?

It is possible, but it is increasingly unlikely. For now, bitcoin remains by far the most popular decentralized digital asset network with rapidly growing global adoption. Typically, when a digital protocol achieves a strong network effect, such as email, it is extremely difficult to change the consensus of all users to use a different protocol.
What is a fork?

A “fork” results from an alteration within the software of the digital currency that creates two versions of the currency on the blockchain. Forks are either temporary (lasting for as little as a few minutes) or permanent splits in the network that creates a separate digital asset.
What is an airdrop?

Airdrops of digital assets occur when digital assets are sent to wallet addresses in order to promote the awareness of a new digital asset. This may involve sharing the digital asset on social media or watching videos about the digital asset in exchange for small amounts of the digital asset.

Regulatory, Business and Future Considerations

Will quantum computing have an impact on the Bitcoin network?

Quantum computing is a long-term theoretical concern for Bitcoin, but not an immediate practical concern. Most experts debate the impact of quantum computing will have on hash algorithms and digital signatures. If a potential threat such as quantum computing arises, the Bitcoin network can change its signature and hashing algorithms to make them resistant to quantum computing. The miners, nodes, owners, and users of bitcoin are all highly incentivized to protect the integrity of the protocol.
Why was bitcoin developed?

Yes. Global adoption of bitcoin and transaction volume is expected to increase significantly prior to that event occurring. As a result, transaction fees will increase in frequency and value as the network grows in adoption. That event will also occur many decades from now, as the last bitcoin is programmed to be mined by the year 2140.
How is bitcoin regulated by the US government?
At the federal level, bitcoin is currently regulated under the following frameworks:
1. FinCEN, a bureau of the US Treasury Department, requires most bitcoin dealers, trading venues and other financial intermediaries providing services in bitcoin to register as money services businesses and be subject to similar anti-money laundering requirements as banks.
2. Commissioners and staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have stated that bitcoin is not a security under federal securities laws.
3. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued guidance that bitcoin is to be treated as property for tax purposes.
4. The Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ruled that digital assets are considered commodities under the Commodity Exchange Act and since 2017 has granted licenses to clear and settle bitcoin derivatives.
5. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has issued guidance that banks may custody bitcoin on behalf of clients.
State regulation:

At the same time, state regulators have also developed robust regulatory frameworks supporting the development of the institutional bitcoin market. The New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) issued the BitLicense in 2015. The BitLicense was crafted to protect consumers and investors without curbing innovation, requiring minimum capital, anti-money laundering and sanctions programs, cybersecurity programs, various consumer protections, and programs to prevent fraud, including market manipulation. There are now over 20 regulated financial services firms operating with BitLicenses or as limited purpose trust companies subject to largely the same requirements, in each case issued by the NYDFS. Some other states besides New York have issued new rules or regimes focused on digital asset businesses, like Louisiana and Wyoming. In addition, many states have required bitcoin dealers and financial institutions to register as money transmitters.

Download the ICCU mobile app to get started with Bitcoin today.

Unlock more convenience from your mobile banking app by investing in bitcoin.
Enjoy the benefits of a fast, safe and easy way to get Bitcoin right in the palm of your hand.

If you’re already an ICCU member, simply log into the ICCU mobile app to access Crypto, or download the app today:

Not an ICCU member yet? Join today!

*Bitcoin execution and custody services are provided by NYDIG Execution LLC (“NYDIG”). NYDIG is authorized by the New York State Department of Financial Services to engage in virtual currency business activity. To receive bitcoin services you must open an account with NYDIG in which your bitcoin will be held (the “NYDIG Account”). Please refer to NYDIG’s Terms and Conditions for more information, including applicable eligibility criteria.

Bitcoin balances in your NYDIG Account are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF), the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), or any other public or private insurer; are not deposits or obligations of Idaho Central Credit Union (ICCU); are not guaranteed by ICCU; may have associated fees; and may not allow member recourse.

NYDIG does not make any recommendations regarding buying or selling bitcoin. There are risks associated with bitcoin trading, which may be heavily speculative and volatile including possible loss of value. See Terms.

This document has been prepared solely for informational purposes and does not represent investment advice or provide an opinion regarding the fairness of any transaction to any and all parties nor does it constitute an offer, solicitation or a recommendation to buy or sell any particular security or instrument or to adopt any investment strategy. This document does not represent valuation judgments with respect to any financial instrument, issuer, security or sector that may be described or referenced herein and does not represent a formal or official view of New York Digital Investment Group or its affiliates (collectively, “NYDIG”).

The information provided herein is valid only for the purpose stated herein and as of the date hereof (or such other date as may be indicated herein) and no undertaking has been made to update the information, which may be superseded by subsequent market events or for other reasons.

No responsibility is taken for changes in market conditions or laws or regulations and no obligation is assumed to revise this report to reflect changes, events or conditions that occur subsequent to the date hereof.

Nothing contained herein constitutes investment, legal, tax or other advice nor is it to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Legal advice can only be provided by legal counsel. Before deciding to proceed with any investment, investors should review all relevant investment considerations and consult with their own advisors. Any decision to invest should be made solely in reliance upon the definitive offering documents for the investment. NYDIG shall have no liability to any third party in respect of this report or any actions taken or decisions made as a consequence of the information set forth herein. By accepting this document in its entirety, the recipient acknowledges its understanding and acceptance of the foregoing terms.