Launch of new investment product and index reflects increasing investor interest in Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
New York, July 19, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Grayscale Investments®, the world’s largest digital currency asset manager, and CoinDesk Indexes, a subsidiary of CoinDesk Inc., the most influential, trusted platform for a growing global community engaged in the transformation of the financial system and the emerging crypto economy, today announced the launch of Grayscale® Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Fund, a new diversified investment product, and the CoinDesk DeFi Index.
Grayscale DeFi Fund (the Fund) provides investors with exposure to a selection of industry-leading DeFi protocols through a market-capitalization-weighted portfolio designed to track the CoinDesk DeFi Index. The Grayscale DeFi Fund is Grayscale’s fifteenth investment product, and its second diversified fund offering.
“Grayscale continues to focus on creating opportunities for investors to access new, exciting parts of the digital asset ecosystem,” said Grayscale Investments CEO Michael Sonnenshein. “The emergence of decentralized finance protocols provide clear examples of technologies that can redefine the future of the financial services industry. We’re proud to offer investors exposure to DeFi through Grayscale’s trusted, secure, and industry-leading investment product structures.”
The CoinDesk DeFi Index (the Index) aims to provide a broad-based, benchmark representation of DeFi protocols. The Index methodology includes liquid DeFi assets on a market cap-weighted basis. Additional information on the Index methodology can be found at https://tradeblock.com/markets/dfx/.
As of July 1, 2021, the Index consisted of the following assets and weightings:
- Uniswap (UNI), 49.95%
- Aave (AAVE), 10.25%
- Compound (COMP), 8.38%
- Curve (CRV), 7.44%
- MakerDAO (MKR), 6.49%
- SushiSwap (SUSHI), 4.83%
- Synthetix (SNX), 4.43%
- Yearn Finance (YFI), 3.31%
- UMA Protocol (UMA), 2.93%
- Bancor Network Token (BNT), 2.00%
“This partnership underscores our leadership in creating institutional-grade digital currency indexes,” said Managing Director of CoinDesk Indexes Jodie Gunzberg. “With increasing attention on the innovations within decentralized finance, it’s critical for the investment community to have tools that deliver calculated exposure to this exciting area of innovation. This collaboration offers investors the data and tools they need to gain exposure to decentralized finance into their portfolios.”
The Fund is now open for daily subscription by the eligible individual and institutional accredited investors.
As is the case for its other products, Grayscale intends to attempt to have shares of this new product quoted on a secondary market. However, there is no guarantee this will be successful. Although the shares of certain products have been approved for trading on a secondary market, investors in this new product should not assume that the shares will ever obtain such approval due to a variety of factors, including questions regulators such as the SEC, FINRA or other regulatory bodies may have regarding the product. As a result, shareholders of this product should be prepared to bear the risk of investment in the shares indefinitely.
This press release is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security in any jurisdiction where such an offer or solicitation would be illegal, nor shall there be any sale of any security in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of that jurisdiction.
About Grayscale Investments®
Grayscale Investments is the world’s largest digital currency asset manager, with more than $28B in assets under management as of July 16, 2021. Through its family of investment products, Grayscale provides access and exposure to the digital currency asset class in the form of a security without the challenges of buying, storing, and safekeeping digital currencies directly. With a proven track record and unrivaled experience, Grayscale’s products operate within existing regulatory frameworks, creating secure and compliant exposure for investors. Grayscale products are distributed by Genesis Global Trading, Inc. (Member FINRA/SIPC, MSRB Registered). For more information, please visit grayscale.com and follow @Grayscale.
About CoinDesk
CoinDesk is the most influential, trusted platform for a growing global community engaged in the transformation of the financial system and the emerging crypto economy. Founded in May 2013, the CoinDesk platform provides millions of consumers interested in cryptocurrency assets and blockchain technology with news and insights, podcasts, live streaming, research reports, events, and a toolkit of indexes, data, and analytics. More than $36 billion in assets under management are benchmarked against CoinDesk Indexes, and billions of dollars in trading volume have been quoted against them in the over-the-counter market. In January 2021, CoinDesk Inc. acquired TradeBlock, the premier platform for institutional digital currency traders and the leading provider of real-time indexes for the spot price of various digital currencies. TradeBlock is a subsidiary of CoinDesk, Inc, and operates entirely independently of CoinDesk Media.
Both Grayscale and CoinDesk are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Digital Currency Group, one of the largest private investors in the industry and a provider of trading and other investment services for that industry. CoinDesk operates entirely independently of the parent company. DCG has no involvement in editorial or content decisions. Twitter: @CoinDesk
