How a stock split works in street language.
For us old people, we remember actually receiving pretty sheets of paper known as stock certificates.
I actually bought shares of a stock from my work colleague instead of through a broker. We went to my bank, who was also my broker. Signed the back of the certificate, got it notarized, then I gave my purchased certificate to the bank to deposit into my account.
I wrote a check to my colleague for the hand shake agreed price.
No fee. However until that certificate was placed into my account, I could not sell it. I could have kept the certificate, and sold it to my neighbor.
A stock split would cause a replacement of the certificates.
You would mail in the certificates or walk into your broker street location and sign them over.
The company handling the split, would then send you the new certificates with the adjusted shares. 91 instead of 1, in this case. If you had 2 GBTC, the certificate would be printed with 182 shares of the new company certificate (d)
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All of you have certificates held by your broker. So you don't have to send them back. When the stock split occurs, it will be all handled by your broker without any action on your part.
So yes, this part you guys have it correct. Until the replacement shares are added to your account, you will not be able to sell them.
The rise in stock price of GBTC on Friday 1/12/2018 was your insurance. You should have sold, if you think the value of your GBTC will go down on the day of the split.
But you will be able to sleep soundly on those days that you wait for the new certificates to arrive in your account, based on the past experience of stock splits. Historically forward stock splits result in higher demand.
The rise and fall will only be based on the value of bitcoin itself, just as it is today.
On Monday 1/29/18 all the initial trading volume will be buyers, not sellers. (except for flippers). Even the Shorts will not be able to trade the old shares. They might actually cover in advance to avoid the risk.
However, there is one hitch to this plan. See (d) above.
When a company wants to retain the original ticker for the new stock certificate, they have to advertise that change for 30 days.
Typically they do that by placing the letter D at the end.
The ticker would be GBTCD for 30 days, then revert back to GBTC.
That way the cut in price to $20 will not look like a disaster.
So this part I am not sure about.
AI
