MakerDAO’s MKR token has jumped by more than 5% to over $2100 after Grayscale launched a new fund exclusively for the decentralized lending platform. The latest product, MakerDAO Trust, will enable investors to gain exposure to MKR, the native token of the Ethereum-based DeFi protocol.
Like other crypto-based funds from Grayscale, the new Trust will only be available to eligible and accredited investors. According to the firm’s press release, this fund will have the same structure as all its other single assets trusts.
MakerDAO Trust to provide exposure to DeFi
The firm described the new product as a way to gain exposure to the MakerDAO ecosystem and benefit from its growth and expansion. The products, solely based on MKR, are a direct bet on the DeFi protocol and one of the crypto industry’s leading decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO).
Grayscale Head of Product & Research, Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary, explained that the firm created this new Trust because investors’ demand for crypto exposure is growing. The firm wants to use this to offer more investment opportunities and expand its crypto-based products. She said:
“The launch of the Grayscale MakerDAO Trust allows investors to experience the growth of the entire MakerDAO ecosystem, aiming to remove DeFi’s dependency on traditional finance infrastructure by providing a permissionless, decentralized, and open stablecoin system.”
Per the press release, the new fund would be close-ended. This means that investors will not be able to withdraw directly from it, which could lead to price deviations where shares of the Trust trade at a discount or premium to the net asset value. This is unlikely to stop investors from investing in the product.
MakerDAO is the issuer of decentralized stablecoin DAI and remains one of the biggest lending protocols, with almost $7 billion in total value locked (TVL). The protocol has been in the news recently due to several developments, including the major restructuring termed the “End Game” by its founder, Rune Christensen.
MakerDAO MKR Metrics (Source: DeFillama)
However, it has also been expanding its offerings. MakerDAO recently shared its plans to invest $1 billion into tokenized US treasury bills. Several issuers of these tokenized government securities have already submitted their application.
Grayscale expands crypto offerings
With the new fund, MKR joins the tokens of other DeFi protocols, such as Aave, Uniswap, and Synthetic, as part of the Grayscale product suite. The digital assets firm has been busy with new crypto-based funds in recent months.
Last month, it created a fund for AI-focused projects with five tokens in the index fund, such as RNDR, FIL, and NEAR. It also launched single asset funds for the decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) platform Bittensor and the Layer-1 blockchain network Sui last week.
These new funds are signs that Grayscale is bullish on crypto funds. Grayscale Global head of ETFs, Dave Lavalle, echoed this during a recent webinar, saying that inflow into Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is just the tip of the iceberg for crypto-focused ETFs. He said:
“We’re going to see several more single asset products, and then also certainly some index-based and diversified products that, you know.”
So far, the firm has seen relative success with crypto-based ETFs. The Bitcoin and Ethereum Trust, which it launched years ago, is now the biggest crypto-based ETF after the Securities Exchange Commission approved spot BTC and ETH for ETFs.
