For some reason I suspect the steady 1btc per 8 seconds buying bot might be connected to this. It might be how the trust maintains parity as investment comes in.
I can tell you with some confidence that the traders for Secondmarket's Bitcoin Investment Trust don't buy on the exchanges. That isn't to say they don't impact the price on the exchanges.
I am very interested to know what other mechanisms exist to purchase bitcoins, the only ones I know of are:
- Exchanges
- Coinbase
- BTC ATMs
- In-person cash sales
In person cash sales & ATMs are not going to provide the $millions in volume needed and coinbase has daily limits and uses exchanges in the back end anyway.
So... Where else can BIT purchase?
There are businesses, miners, and other individuals who hold relatively large sums of bitcoins and Secondmarket seeks them out and builds relationships with them.