The digital assets management firm, which has specialised in cryptocurrency investment funds, has made its entry into DeFi
Grayscale, one of the world’s biggest crypto asset managers, confirmed yesterday via a press release that it would be launching a new fund explicitly dedicated to decentralised finance (DeFi) tokens. The new product would be released in collaboration with CoinDesk’s TradeBlock wing. The press release indicated that the product would enable investors to plough their funds into DeFi without necessarily owning or buying tokens first. This, as per the firm, would make the whole experience much easier.
The company’s CEO Michael Sonnenshein lauded DeFi and its products as a promising space ideal for investment.
“Grayscale continues to focus on creating opportunities for investors to access new, exciting parts of the digital asset ecosystem. The emergence of decentralised finance protocols provide clear examples of technologies that can redefine the future of the financial services industry,” he noted.
The press additionally revealed that the new fund would use Coindex DeFi Index, a product that CoinDesk obtained following its January acquisition of TradeBlock. TradeBlock was among the first entities to develop a professional Bitcoin tracking tool in 2014, the XRB Index. Grayscale Bitcoin Trust was already the biggest user of the XBX Index at the time of purchase, significantly contributing to the billions of dollars being traded via TradeBlocks’ indexes.
The New York-based firm confirmed that the new product would be available to both individual and institutional investors. Grayscale also revealed its plans to have the product listed on a secondary exchange, though expressing doubts over the success of such a venture. The digital asset manager intends to use market capitalisation-based assessments to perform wide-ranging benchmark representations of DeFi protocols.
Sonnenshein also spoke to the company’s commitment to offering quality DeFi services and products.
“We’re proud to offer investors exposure to DeFi through Grayscale’s trusted, secure, and industry-leading investment product structures.”
The newly-announced launch would mark just the second diversified fund that Grayscale would be starting up within the last three years, having set up the Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund in 2018. It also numbers up as the 16th investment product the asset manager has produced.
DeFi has become increasingly popular and established itself as an area of high interest for investors. The DeFi markets have traded an approximate $50 billion over the last year alone, and the associated DeFi products have equally bloomed. Grayscale further continues to diversify in crypto as well, having outlined plans earlier in the year to integrate 13 new products into its portfolio, including Cardano, Monero and Polygon.
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