A private trust that invests entirely in the bitcoin alternative digital currency announced Friday that it is raising capital on the private market known as SecondMarket.

The Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT) bills itself as the first U.S.-based private trust that is exclusively invested in bitcoins and derives its value solely from the price of bitcoins. It will enable institutional and accredited individual investors to gain exposure to bitcoins without directly owning them.

The vehicle’s sponsor is Alternative Currency Asset Management (ACAM), a wholly owned subsidiary of SecondMarket Holdings, Inc that focuses on alternative currencies including bitcoin. And, shares of the BIT are being exclusively offered through SecondMarket Inc., a registered broker-dealer, which has also made a US$2 million seed investment in the BIT.

“We incubated the BIT to alleviate the problems of direct bitcoin ownership, including having to wire money to newly-established and potentially unregulated entities around the world,” said SecondMarket founder and CEO, Barry Silbert.

“We believe that bitcoin may have significant upside given the size and scope of the industries that potentially are impacted by bitcoin,” Silbert noted. “However, bitcoin also faces regulatory uncertainty and widespread adoption issues that make investing in bitcoin a highly risky endeavor.”

Bitcoin is a virtual currency that was created in 2009 as an alternative to traditional currencies created by government authorities.