On December 12, Grayscale Investments launched two new investment funds focused on the governance tokens of Lido (LDO) and Optimism (OP). This is the next step for the world's largest asset manager in the crypto space, aimed at providing access to important Ethereum protocols.
Investment focus on leading protocols
Two new funds, Grayscale Lido DAO Trust and Grayscale Optimism Trust, aim to invest in:
Lido: The largest liquidity staking protocol on Ethereum, allowing the issuance of tokens representing ownership of staked Ether. According to DefiLlama, Lido is currently the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol with a total value locked (TVL) of nearly 40 billion USD.
Optimism: One of the most popular layer 2 (L2) scaling solutions on Ethereum, with a TVL of around 800 million USD. The technology of Optimism is also used by other L2 networks like Coinbase's Base and Uniswap's Unichain, creating an ecosystem they call the “superchain.”
Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary, Product and Research Director at Grayscale, commented:
“Lido is driving the democratization of staking on Ethereum, while Optimism plays a key role in scaling, helping Ethereum maintain its competitive position against modern layer 1 blockchains.”
Source: Grayscale
Strategy to strengthen the DeFi ecosystem
Grayscale emphasizes that these trusts not only provide investment opportunities but also support protocols that play a crucial role in enhancing efficiency, security, and adoption of Ethereum.
These two funds continue to add to Grayscale's portfolio of exclusive cryptocurrency products.
October 2023: Launch of investment fund for Aave (AAVE).
August 2023: Launch of trust fund for Sky protocols (formerly MakerDAO), Bittensor, and Sui.
Grayscale is also considering 35 new altcoins, including Dogecoin (DOGE), Worldcoin (WLD), and Rune (RUNE), to further develop investment products in the future.
With total assets under management of nearly 35 billion USD as of December 11, Grayscale asserts its position as the largest cryptocurrency fund manager in the world. The company is widely known for flagship products such as Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE). Currently, Grayscale is awaiting approval from U.S. regulators to convert Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund (GDLC) into the first ETF fund that holds a diversified cryptocurrency portfolio.
The emergence of new trusts highlights Grayscale's strategy to capitalize on the DeFi and layer 2 trends of Ethereum, reinforcing its position as a pioneering asset manager in the crypto industry.
At the time of writing, the price of LDO token is up over 16% and trading at $2.23. Meanwhile, OP price is up 6.4% and trading at $2.5.
LDO price chart 1 day | Source: TradingView