Grayscale Pairs with Coindesk Index to Launch DeFi Fund and Index

Grayscale Investments LLC announced Monday to launch its 15th investment product, a DeFi fund and index, which focuses on decentralised finance (DeFi) tokens.

Michael Sonnenshein, the CEO of Grayscale crypto asset management firm, talked about the development and said that the company had begun a fund that targets DeFi tokens like Aave and Uniswap for its institutional investors.  

The new index is designed to help investors tracking DeFi tokens and investing in them. As of July 1, a DeFi -particular index, created by CoinDesk’s TradeBlock, started tracking the new fund whose 10 DeFi blue chips include Bancor (BNT), UMA Protocol (UMA), Yearn Finance (YFI), Synthetix (SNX), SushiSwap (SUSHI), MakerDAO (MKR), Curve (CRV), Compound (COMP), Aave (AAVE), and Uniswap (UNI).

Sonnenshein said that the firm had seen interest in a wide base of its existing investors and the increasing interest in popular cryptocurrencies in the decentralised finance ecosystem. The CEO, therefore, mentioned that the rising user adoption in DeFi protocols triggered Grayscale to launch an institutional-grade index and a DeFi fund:

“The emergence of decentralised finance protocols provides 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,” 

In a statement, the Fund is now open for daily subscription by the eligible individual and institutional accredited investors. 

Grayscale's plans for Bitcoin ETF  

As mentioned above, the new DeFi fund is Grayscale’s 15th investment product, which is the second diversified fund launched after another diversified fund called the Digital Large Cap Fund.

Last week, Grayscale approved its Digital Large Cap Fund to become an SEC-reporting company. Already two of the firm’s other cryptocurrency investing products, namely the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and the Grayscale Ethereum Trust, are SEC reporting companies.

The development about becoming an SEC reporting outfit is vital as Grayscale said that the aim is to provide the investors with a higher level of disclosure and reporting besides the already stringent obligations to which its products adhere.  

Grayscale also recently said that its crypto products are designed with the focus of eventually becoming Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). The firm stated that becoming an SEC reporting is the final step for their products before transforming into an ETF.