Grayscale Company Intelligence

With approximately $40 billion AUM as of March 25, Grayscale Investments is a leader in the digital currency asset management space, offering clients traditional investment vehicles that can provide various digital currency exposures without the hassle of owning and storing the digital currencies directly. Grayscale Investments' products include single asset trusts, diversified funds and its thematic ETF. Grayscale Investments noted that its investment objective for crypto-asset products is for the value of its shares to reflect the price performance of such product's underlying digital asset(s) less fees and expenses. To get closer to achieving that goal, Grayscale Investments is working on converting its investment products into ETFs that will track the performance of its underlying asset(s).

Starting with the launch of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust in 2013, Grayscale Investments has been steadily working on expanding its crypto-asset offerings for its investors. Major launches occurred during the two previous bull cycles. In 2017-18, Grayscale Investments launched seven single asset trusts and its digital large-cap fund. In 2021, Grayscale Investments launched six single asset trusts and its DeFi fund. Grayscale Investments' latest launch was the Grayscale Smart Contract Platform Ex-Ethereum Fund released this March. The general product lifecycle of these investment products consists of four steps: (1) launch private placement, (2) obtain a public quotation on the secondary market, (3) become SEC reporting (4) convert into an ETF. Investment products that had launched prior to 2021 are in the second and third stages of this lifecycle as publicly quoted products. Although Grayscale Investments noted that its investment objective is to match the share price with the value of the underlying assets, Grayscale Investments is far from reaching these goals as it currently does not operate a redemption program. Because the supply of shares cannot be changed to meet shifting demand, there is no assurance that each investment product's value will reflect the underlying asset values. This means shares can trade at a substantial premium or a discount in the secondary market. The majority of the company's investment products are currently trading at a discount. A detailed overview of Grayscale Investments' crypto-asset investment products is shown below.