Grayscale Investments, the creator of the Bitcoin Investment Trust, is launching four new trusts today, doubling its number of products aimed at helping investors explore cryptocurrencies.
The new trusts – which bring ethereum, litecoin, XRP and bitcoin cash to the offerings the firm provides – join Grayscale’s existing bitcoin, ethereum classic and zcash investment trusts, as well as its Digital Large Cap Fund, a multi-crypto investment fund announced last month.
Each of the newly announced cryptocurrencies is already part of the Digital Large Cap Fund, but were not previously available individually.
Michael Sonnenshein, the managing director of Grayscale Investments, said the new products are part of an expanding suite, and that the firm – a Digital Currency Group subsidiary – will continue to announce new products, both single-currency and diversified.
Sonnenshein continued:
“It is our belief that digital currencies as an asset class have not only arrived, but are here to stay. Consequently, we are committed to providing investors with structures that enable them to participate in this exciting asset class.”
As of March 5, Grayscale had $2.1 billion in assets under management, he said, up from $208 million just a year ago.
“This is a meaningful milestone for Grayscale as it increases the number of investment offerings under the Grayscale umbrella from four to eight. At this time last year, Grayscale had only one product, Bitcoin Investment Trust,” he told CoinDesk in an email.
The new products are among the first securities to allow investment in those particular cryptocurrencies, according to a press release. It adds the disclaimer that, the value of a share in a trust may not correspond to the value of a cryptocurrency being held by the trust.
Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Grayscale, Ripple, and Zcash Company, the for-profit entity that develops the zcash protocol.
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