Crypto Fund Manager Grayscale Reopens Deposits for New Clients

Grayscale Investments, the crypto industry’s largest institutional investment company, caused a bit of a stir after it closed investments into its top crypto trusts last month. Things seem to have changed, as the company now gears up for a major 2021 by opening deposits.

Ready for Investments

The New York-based investment firm is now opening deposits for most of its investment trusts, per information on its website.

The company confirmed that it has started accepting investments into its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and the Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund Trust. The Grayscale Ether Fund remains inactive. There is a strong possibility that could open that soon as well.

Grayscale shut its doors on new investments back in December. At the time, a Twitter screenshot confirmed that the asset management firm had restricted investments. A company spokesperson immediately allayed investors’ fears, telling industry news sources that the halt was due to a mandatory lock-up of Bitcoin Investment Shares purchased in June.

The New York-based company periodically stops and resumes inflows from new investors into its funds.

During these periods, the funds remained accessible to private placement. At the same time, all new investors in the company are subject to a six-month lock-up period for purchased shares. Following the period, investors will be allowed to sell their shares to non-accredited investors on the open market.

Eyes on 2021

Now that the lock-up period is ended, Grayscale will be looking to build on what was a stellar 2020. The firm currently holds three percent of the total Bitcoin in circulation and will be looking to score even bigger wins going forward.

Yesterday, Grayscale confirmed that its assets under management amounted to $24.5 billion, up from $19.8 billion two weeks ago. Most of the increase appears to have come from the crypto market’s recent rally instead of new investors.

01/11/21 UPDATE: Net Assets Under Management, Holdings per Share, and Market Price per Share for our Investment Products.

Total AUM: $24.5 billion$BTC $BCH $ETH $ETC $ZEN $LTC $XLM $XRP $ZEC pic.twitter.com/WgFd5UCENP

— Grayscale (@Grayscale) January 11, 2021

Of course, this isn’t to say that Grayscale isn’t gearing up for new investments. Last week, Michael Sonnenshein, the company’s newly appointed chief executive, explained to Bloomberg that they had seen a growth in crypto commitments from endowment and pension funds. In part, the CEO explained:

“We’ve started to see participation not just from the hedge fund segment, which we’ve long seen participation from, but now it’s recently from other institutions, pensions and endowments. […] The sizes of allocations they are making are growing rapidly as well.”

Grayscale could also get a significant boost from Guggenheim Partners, a New York-based investment firm with over $270 billion in assets under management. Last month, Guggenheim filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allow its Macro Opportunities fund to allocate up to $500 million to the Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Fund. The investment appears poised to kick in at the end of the month, and it will definitely be a boost to Grayscale’s bottom line.