Original title: (ZEN has risen for 3 consecutive days; can the Grayscale trust holdings keep up?)

Original link: shaofaye123, Foresight News

Recently, Grayscale has launched the Optimism Trust Fund and the Lido Trust Fund one after another. The SUI and ZEN within its trust funds also continue to rise despite a pullback. Are the trust funds launched by Grayscale a collection of blue-chip tokens, and will they be profitable in the long run? This article takes you through the 26 cryptocurrency trusts currently launched by Grayscale and their investment returns.

Overview of Grayscale Cryptocurrency Trusts

Grayscale is a digital asset management company established in 2013, primarily providing various cryptocurrency trust funds aimed at offering investors legal and regulated investment channels. As one of the largest cryptocurrency asset management companies in the world, it manages billions of dollars in assets. As of now, Grayscale has launched 26 cryptocurrency trusts.

Grayscale Trust Funds are a series of cryptocurrency investment products offered by Grayscale, which allow investors to indirectly hold cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum without needing to directly purchase and manage them. Each trust fund is linked to a specific cryptocurrency asset, such as the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE). Through these trust funds, investors can buy and sell shares of cryptocurrency assets on the public market just like investing in traditional stocks.

In addition to single-coin trust funds, the bundled coin combination funds launched by Grayscale also have strong investment reference significance. Currently, Grayscale's cryptocurrency trusts, aside from ETFs, mainly fall into three phases in terms of product cycles.

· PRIVATE PLACEMENT: Grayscale products are initially launched in private placement form, allowing qualified investors to participate in cryptocurrency investments. The initial restriction period for stocks purchased in private placements is one year. Currently, Grayscale Sui Trust, Grayscale Lido DAO Trust, etc., belong to this phase.

· PUBLIC QUOTATION: A market form of public quotation that allows all investors to participate in the cryptocurrency investment. However, due to the lack of a continuous repurchase plan, publicly traded stocks may trade at a premium or discount to the value of their underlying assets. Currently, MANA, GLNK, DEFG, etc., belong to this phase.

· SEC REPORTING: Grayscale products are the first to report to the SEC. The reporting requirement to the SEC will further improve the level of disclosure, providing greater transparency for investors and subjecting the products to additional regulatory oversight. Currently, ETCG, ZCSH, HZEN, etc., belong to this phase.

It is difficult to outperform BTC in the long term.

According to reports, Grayscale had a significant impact on cryptocurrencies during the bull market from 2020 to 2021 when it greatly increased the asset scale of Bitcoin trusts, introducing a large number of institutional investors into the crypto space. The performance of other cryptocurrencies launched by Grayscale during this period varied in the short term but has struggled to outperform BTC in the long term.

To track the investment return rate of Grayscale funds, I recorded the token prices at the time of the trust's launch and the token prices on December 23, creating the chart above. From a temporal perspective, the timing of Grayscale's launch of cryptocurrency trust products was mainly concentrated around 2018 and 2021, often coinciding with peaks in the bull market or its latter phase. This phenomenon may relate to the relatively long cycle and maturity of the market required for Grayscale to launch its funds. This December, Grayscale has begun to focus on launching trust funds again; will it be able to break the cycle of short-term peaks this time?

In terms of investment returns, in the long term, (including BTC, ETH) the tokens presenting positive investment returns account for only about 48%, which is even lower than the random 50% probability of flipping a coin. Moreover, their investment return rates are far inferior to BTC, showing a long-term negative EV.

In the short term, the tokens launched by Grayscale indeed had glorious moments, but most occurred before their launch. XRP has not yet surpassed its previous high even after experiencing a strong rebound, and after three consecutive days of increases, ZEN barely maintains an 18% investment return. Although some star tokens reached peaks after their launch, when viewed from a long-term annualized perspective, their interest rates are even below 10% after a lengthy 7-year holding period. However, different timing in establishing positions has a more significant impact on investment returns; if Grayscale concept tokens are acquired at the bottom during a bear market, nearly all participants outperform the average increase during a bull market. Observing assets that have not shown obvious movements at this time may lead to good gains next year.

Grayscale's held tokens have different signaling effects at different time periods; in this sense, Grayscale's strict selection indeed exists.

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