Grayscale’s Latest Fund Is Dedicated to Platforms for Smart Contracts

The biggest digital currency asset management in the world announces the launch of its 18th investment product.

Grayscale Investments has developed a fund that enables investors to wager on Ethereum’s biggest smart contract rivals.

The Grayscale Smart Contract Platform ex Ethereum Fund is a market capitalization-weighted index tracker for the CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Select Ex ETH Index.

Smart contracts are computer programmes that operate on blockchains and are triggered when specific criteria are satisfied. They enable users to develop DeFi apps, reflect ownership of non-fungible assets (NFTs), and transfer payments.

As of March 16, the fund’s biggest holdings were Cardano (ADA) and Solana (SOL), each accounting for over 24% of the portfolio. Avalanche (AVAX) and Polkadot (DOT) each contribute for around 17% and 16% of the portfolio, respectively, while the fund also invests in Polygon (MATIC), Algorand (ALGO), and Stellar (XLM).

Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of Grayscale, described the smart contract platform ecosystem as a “emerging field” inside cryptocurrency.

“Our investors continue to seek diversity within their cryptocurrency portfolios,” he said to Blockworks. “They are not interested in picking winners and want a varied product structure that allows for frictionless access.”

While many investors have allocated to Ethereum because to its rise over the last year, CoinDesk Indices Managing Director Jodie Gunzberg says there is also demand for other smart contract platforms.

The market capitalization of Ethereum is over $350 billion. Its price was around $3,020 as of 8 a.m. ET on Tuesday, according to statistics provided by Blockworks — up 68.6 percent from a year earlier.

ADA and SOL both have market capitalizations of approximately $30 billion. ADA’s price is now $0.95, a 19.7 percent decrease over the last year. SOL’s share price has increased 542 percent year over year to $91.90.

The new fund is accessible to daily subscriptions from suitable authorised individuals and institutions and charges a 2.5 percent yearly fee.

Grayscale currently offers 18 investment products, including three diversified portfolios. Grayscale, the world’s biggest digital currency asset management as of March 18, controlled almost $40 billion in digital currency assets.

Sonnenshein said that Grayscale is always considering new procedures to add to its product family in order to keep up with demand.

In January, the business added 25 assets to a list of investments it is contemplating offering to investors. The news comes on the heels of the firm’s debut of its first exchange-traded fund (ETF), the Grayscale Future of Finance ETF (GFOF), last month. The fund, which has a 70 basis point cost ratio, has a $14 million asset base.

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