Correspondence 0001493152-24-004468 from BTCS Inc. (BTCS)
BTCS Inc.
Date: Jan. 31, 2024 · CIK: 0001436229 · Accession: 0001493152-24-004468
AI Filing Summary & Sentiment
File numbers found in text: 001-40792
Referenced dates: January 22, 2024
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CORRESP
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filename1.htm
BTCS
Inc.
9466
Georgia Avenue #124
Silver
Spring, MD 20910
January
31, 2024
VIA
EDGAR
Securities
and Exchange Commission
Division
of Corporation Finance
Office
of Crypto Assets
Re:
BTCS
Inc.
Form
10-K for the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2022
Form
10-Q for the Quarterly Period Ended September 30, 2023
File
No. 001-40792
Ladies
and Gentlemen:
This
letter is submitted by BTCS Inc. (the “Company” or “BTCS”) in response to the comment letter dated January 22,
2024 issued by the Staff of the Division of Corporation Finance (the “Staff”) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the
“Commission”) with respect to the Company’s Form 10-K for the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2022 and the Form 10-Q
for the Quarterly Period Ended September 30, 2023.
For
your convenience, each of the Staff’s comments have been restated below in their entirety, with the Company’s responses set
forth immediately beneath such comment.
Form
10-K for the Fiscal Year Ended Year Ended December 31, 2022
General
1. We
note your response to prior comment 1. We continue to consider your response and may have
further comments.
Response:
Understood.
2. Refer
to your response to prior comment 2. In your response letter, you state that your business
should be viewed as “more akin to that of a service provider that supplies computer
hardware or software,” and that you, therefore, do not engage with the crypto assets
in such a way that the identification of crypto assets as securities will impact your business,
financial condition and results of operations. Further, you state that you have determined
that how you account for the crypto assets you hold will not change as you believe that,
“despite certain crypto assets being identified as securities by the SEC, they do not
meet the definition of a security under U.S. GAAP pursuant to ASC because the decentralization
of the blockchains will result in the participation of the digital assets no longer being
linked to participation in property or an entity.” In future filings, please add risk
factor disclosure addressing the risks and limitations of your determinations, including
that they are risk-based judgments and not a legal standard or determination binding on any
regulatory body or court. Also address the risks to your business, financial condition and
results of operations if a regulatory body or court finds that your conclusions are incorrect.
Response:
The
Company acknowledges the Staff’s comment and in future filings will include an expanded disclosure and risk factor substantially
in the form below.
Securities and Exchange Commission
Division of Corporation Finance
Office of Crypto Assets
Page 2
January 31, 2024
“We
note that in separate SEC complaints, the SEC has alleged several crypto assets we hold, specifically Cardano, Tezos, Solana, Cosmos,
Polygon, Axie Infinity, and NEAR Protocol are securities. The Company has conducted a detailed legal analysis which has led us to determine
that certain crypto assets that are identified as securities by the SEC should not impact our business, financial condition, and results
of operations. Provided, however, if over 40% of our assets are considered securities excluding cash we may be considered a 1940 act
company (see the risk factor on page 20 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K). Further, the aforementioned assessment is risk-based judgments
and not a legal standard or determination binding on any regulatory body or court. To the extent a regulatory body or court finds that
our conclusions are incorrect, we may seek to cease certain of our operations. Any such action may adversely affect an investment in
us.”
3. We
note your response to prior comment 8 and reissue in part. In your response, please (i) include
your calculation under section 3(a)(1)(C) of the Investment Company Act, identifying each
constituent part of the numerator and denominator and (ii) identify the assets that you treat
as “cash items” for purposes of your analysis.
Response:
The
table below details, as of June 30, 2023, the crypto asset holdings supporting our response to prior comment 8, utilizing the impaired
book value of our crypto assets (as opposed to the fair market value). The cash items excluded from the “Total Assets” figure
consists only of USD cash deposits held in Company checking accounts. Upon request we can provide additional calculations for other periods
but note that the results are similar.
Crypto
Asset
Book
Value
%
of Total Assets (excl. Cash)
Ethereum
(ETH)
5,176,274
61 %
Cardano
(ADA)
60,686
1 %
(a)
Kusama
(KSM)
140,203
2 %
Tezos
(XTZ)
17,533
0 %
(a)
Solana
(SOL)
62,569
1 %
(a)
Polkadot
(DOT)
33,442
0 %
Cosmos
(ATOM)
1,665,976
20 %
(a)
Polygon
(MATIC)
165,870
2 %
(a)
Avalanche
(AVAX)
187,050
2 %
Axie
Infinity (AXS)
236,126
3 %
(a)
Kava
(KAVA)
167,948
2 %
Band
Protocol (BAND)
948
0 %
Mina
(MINA)
30,562
0 %
Oasis
Network (ROSE)
105,908
1 %
Akash
(AKT)
19,573
0 %
NEAR
Protocol (NEAR)
89,480
1 %
(a)
Evmos
(EVMOS)
25,888
0 %
Total
8,186,036
97 %
Total
Assets (excluding Cash)
$ 8,470,266
(b)
Threshold:
Total assets x 40% test
$ 3,388,106
Total
- Assets identified as securities by SEC
$ 2,298,240
(a)
Percentage
of Total Assets
27 %
=(a)/(b)
Securities and Exchange Commission
Division of Corporation Finance
Office of Crypto Assets
Page 3
January 31, 2024
Calculation
of total Assets excluding cash
Crypto
assets/currencies
948
Investments,
at value (Cost $100,000)
100,000
Staked
crypto assets/currencies
8,185,089
Prepaid
expense
175,395
Property
and equipment, net
8,834
Total
Assets excluding cash
$ 8,470,266
(b)
Business
Our
Business, page 3
4. Refer
to your response to prior comment 11. In future filings, please include a more detailed description
of the nature of your staking services, including the specifics of how the staking process
operates on StateSeeker’s Stake Hub. In this regard, we note your disclosure on page
3 that “StakeSeeker’s Stake Hub is central to BTCS’s growth strategy, allowing
users to Delegate their crypto assets to the Company’s validator nodes.” Disclose
how the arrangements with users of the platform are structured, and clarify whether your
platform only allows users to stake or delegate their crypto assets to your validator nodes
or if the platform allows users to stake to third-party validators using Stake Hub. In this
regard, we note your response to comment 17 in which you say that “crypto asset holders
can delegate to validator nodes not operated by the Company and sign up for StakeSeeker to
utilize [y]our software.” Also, in future filings, please include the Token Rewards
Production table you include in response to comment 26. To the extent that you do not earn
revenues from certain users or for certain services, so state in future filings. In this
regard, we note your response to comment 9 that “BTCS operates the StakeSeeker platform,
which is currently a free-to-use personal finance software and informational website.”
Response:
The
Company acknowledges the Staff’s comment and in future filings will include the expanded disclosure to substantially in the form
below.
“The
Company’s internally-developed “StakeSeeker” platform is a personal finance software and education center with a comprehensive
crypto dashboard for crypto asset holders to connect, monitor, track, and analyze their crypto portfolios across exchanges and wallets
in a single analytics platform. The StakeSeeker dashboard reads user data from digital wallets and utilizes application programming interfaces
(APIs) to read data from crypto exchanges and does not allow for the trading or custody of crypto assets. StakeSeeker’s Stake Hub
functions as an educational center, offering users guidance on the delegation of their crypto assets to our non-custodial validator nodes,
along with the ability to monitor such delegation activities through data analysis. StakeSeeker does not provide or facilitate direct,
asset delegation or transaction execution on our platform. Stake Hub’s primary role is to offer instructional support and tracking
capabilities. There is no active process for asset delegation through the Stake Hub dashboard; it is primarily a monitoring tool. Crypto
asset holders are able to delegate to our validator nodes without signing up for the StakeSeeker platform; conversely, crypto asset holders
can delegate to validator nodes not operated by the Company and sign up for StakeSeeker to utilize our software. The StakeSeeker platform
is currently free-to-use for registered users, and as such does not currently generate any revenue. The Company is not a broker-dealer
or an investment advisor and does not provide any such related services.”
Refer
to tables presented in response to Comments #12 and #13 for details of the Token Rewards Production table which we plan to incorporate
in future filings under the “Company Overview” section of MD&A.
5. Refer
to your response to prior comment 14. In future filings, please clarify that you self-custody
your crypto assets, disclose what portion of your crypto assets you hold in hot wallets and
cold wallets, whether you hold your private keys in cold storage and whether you have insurance
that covers the loss of your crypto assets. In this regard, we note the first and second
risk factors on page 28.
Response:
We
plan to enhance our disclosure around our custody procedures regarding our crypto assets in future filings in consideration of the Staff’s
comments. Our enhanced disclosure will supplement previous disclosure and will include disclosure substantially in the form below:
“BTCS
prioritizes self-custody of its crypto assets through secure storage of the majority of its crypto assets in cold digital wallets, with
the goal of typically maintaining less than 0.1% of its crypto assets on crypto exchanges at any given time, except during necessary
transfers between wallets and exchanges for sales or purchases. Occasionally, we may use hot wallets or move crypto assets to exchanges
for operational or transactional requirements. Additionally, we regularly transfer crypto assets to more secure cold wallets when possible.
As of December 31, 2023, [●]% of BTCS’s crypto assets were held in cold storage wallets and [●]% of crypto
assets were held in other storage wallets.
Securities and Exchange Commission
Division of Corporation Finance
Office of Crypto Assets
Page 4
January 31, 2024
The
Company currently does not maintain any insurance policies that provide coverage for potential losses of crypto assets in cases of theft,
lost keys, or any other events that might lead to the loss of private keys or crypto assets held within our secure digital wallets.
Our
cold wallet private keys are protected through a variety of methods, including key sharding, key encryption, and offline encrypted key
storage in safety deposit boxes situated across multiple geographic locations. This multi-layered approach ensures the utmost security
for our crypto assets.”
6. Refer
to your response to prior comment 17. In future filings, please disclose how you calculate
the estimated staking rewards that you include on your platform.
Response:
The
Company acknowledges the Staff’s comment and in future filings will include the expanded disclosure substantially in the form below.
“The
estimated staking rewards, expressed as the Annual Percentage Reward (APR), as displayed on StakeSeeker’s Stake Hub and our StakeSeeker
website (www.stakeseeker.com), are determined using the most recent network data obtained through API data pulls from www.stakingrewards.com,
a reputable and leading third-party blockchain data provider. To ensure accuracy and consistency, BTCS conducts periodic checks to validate
the APR data obtained against the data reported on each respective blockchain network’s blockchain explorer. Footnotes on StakeSeeker’s
Stake Hub and website state that the APR presented is not guaranteed and does not include StakeSeeker’s validator fee. The figures
are provided for informational purposes and are subject to change based on the dynamics of the underlying blockchain networks.”
7. Refer
to your response to prior comment 22. Please revise to disclose the functionality of Stake
Hub on your Stateseeker platform. In addition please describe your policies and procedures
for ensuring that your business operations are in compliance with the federal securities
laws related to the decision to add functions, services and crypto assets to your crypto
asset platform.
Response:
Refer
to enhanced disclosures surrounding StakeSeeker in responses to comment #4 and #6 above. We would like to draw your attention specifically
to the disclosure language that states, “StakeSeeker does not provide or facilitate direct, asset delegation or transaction
execution on our platform. Stake Hub’s primary role is to offer instructional support and tracking capabilities. There is no active
process for asset delegation through the Stake Hub dashboard; it is primarily a monitoring tool.”
We
believe that our disclosures effectively convey that StakeSeeker is a free-to-use dashboard designed exclusively for monitoring crypto
asset holdings and transactions. Therefore, the additional monitoring capabilities for crypto assets do not i