Grayscale Investments, the company behind the Bitcoin Investment Trust has now announced that they will be starting off with four new trusts - one each for Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. The announcement came on Tuesday and the company stated that these new investment products will allow investors exposure to different cryptocurrencies in a similar setting.
These new investment funds have been named similar to the Bitcoin Investment Trust: Ripple Investment Trust, Ethereum Investment Trust, Bitcoin Cash Investment Trust and the Litecoin Investment Trust. These newly announced investment trusts are not only named similar to the Bitcoin Investment Trust, but will continue to function in a similar manner as well.A private placement will be offered to accredited investors who purchase a minimum of $10,000 worth of shares and submit to a one-year investment period.
“We are thrilled to expand Grayscale’s offerings to meet rising investor demand,” said Michael Sonnenshein, Grayscale’s managing director, in a media release. “Our team is committed to bridging the gap between the global investment community and the digital currency asset class. We remain focused on product creation and will continue to launch more single-asset and diversified products to provide exposure where investors are looking for it.”
With the addition of these four new funds, the total cryptocurrency funds that Grayscale Investments has to offer has risen to eight. The company also offers Ethereum Classic Investment Fund as well as ZCash Investment Fund along with the Digital Large Cap Fund, which is a multi-currency investment fund. For those who may not be aware, the Digital Currency Group is an organization which has ownership stakes in both, ZCash as well as Grayscale Investments.
The aforementioned Digital Large Cap Fund was announced by the company just last month which holds market cap-weighted positions in the five largest cryptocurrencies. Each of these top five cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin) now have their own, dedicated fund. As of March 5 2017, Grayscale has $2.1 billion in assets under management, Michael Sonnenshein said, up from $208 million just a year ago.
While retail investors helped grow the cryptocurrency market in 2017, it is expected that institutional investors and cryptocurrency funds such as these will help the cryptocurrency prices rise this year with the help of large investments. As we noted in an earlier news story, the number of cryptocurrency hedge funds have doubled in the past four months, and understandably so because of the massive price rise that cryptocurrencies witnessed from late November to early January.
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. 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 cryptocurrency news website CoinDesk in an email.
