Grayscale's accumulation reflects not only investor demand but may also pave the way for future ETFs, just as Grayscale converted GBTC to a Bitcoin ETF.
Here’s information on the top 3 altcoins accumulated by Grayscale in 2024.
2024 Altcoin Focus: Grayscale Accumulation
Grayscale is one of the market-leading cryptocurrency investment funds with over 10 years of history, currently offering a list of 26 investment products covering more than 20 different altcoins. Public on-chain data shows Grayscale's accumulation activities for the following altcoins.
1. (XLM)
The number of Stellar (XLM) held by Grayscale increased by 63% in 2024. From 71 million XLM at the beginning of the year, Grayscale now holds over 119 million, indicating that the fund has purchased over 48 million XLM. The chart shows no sales throughout the year.
In the last two months of this year, XLM's price increased by 600%, surprising many investors. Grayscale's Grayscale Stellar Lumens Trust product has submitted its 10-K for the fiscal year ending September 2024. Data from RWA.xyz also shows that in terms of the total value of on-chain crypto-backed physical assets, Stellar is trailing behind Ethereum's blockchain.
2. (ZEN)
CoinGlass data shows that in December, Grayscale began increasing its holdings in Horizen (ZEN). This move is noteworthy as it marks the first accumulation activity by Grayscale in ZEN in nearly four years. Meanwhile, ZEN's price surged by up to 240% in December.
Grayscale also holds investment products related to ZEN, such as the Grayscale Horizen Trust. The company has maintained this trust over the years but has not yet traded it over-the-counter. So far, Grayscale has announced that this fund is now open to accredited investors.
Additionally, Wu Blockchain has stated that Grayscale also submitted Form 8-K for Grayscale Horizen Trust (ZEN) to the SEC. This form indicates that the trust privately issued 3,565,200 shares to "accredited investors," totaling approximately 304,034 ZEN tokens, worth over $4.7 million.
3. (LTC)
Litecoin (LTC) is one of the altcoins that Grayscale has been continuously accumulating this year, although LTC's price performance has not been particularly impressive. In 2024 alone, Grayscale has accumulated over 500,000 LTC, bringing its total LTC holdings to 2.03 million LTC.
Grayscale has the Grayscale Litecoin Trust product, which helps investors gain exposure to this historic altcoin. In October, Nashville-based investment firm Canary Capital submitted an application for a Litecoin ETF to the SEC. This move indicates that not only Grayscale but many other institutional investors are interested in this asset.
So much so that some analysts believe that a Litecoin ETF has a greater chance of SEC approval than a Solana ETF or XRP ETF.
Barchart predicts:
We expect a wave of crypto ETFs to emerge next year, although not all at once. The first may be an ETF combining BTC + ETH, followed possibly by Litecoin (as it is a fork of BTC, [hence it is a commodity]), then HBAR (as it has not been labeled a security), and finally XRP/Solana (currently in pending litigation labeled as a security).
