Grayscale Investments launches fund focused on ‘Ethereum killers’

World’s largest digital asset management firm Grayscale announced Tuesday the creation of a new fund that seeks to gain exposure to select smart contract networks. The fund will focus on networks that rival the current market leader Ethereum.

The “Grayscale Smart Contract Platform Ex-Ethereum Fund (GSCPxE)” will track the performance of the CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Select Ex ETH Index. Both the companies – Grayscale and media outlet CoinDesk – are subsidiaries of Digital Currency Group, a venture capital firm focused on digital assets.

Per the press release, the fund is composed of Cardano, Solana, Avalanche, Polkadot, Polygon, Algorand, and Stellar. Almost 50% of GSCPxE’s weighing consists of Solana and Cardano, followed by Avalanche and Polkadot. Investors will receive the least amount of exposure for Steller, which has a weighted average of 4.06%.

Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein explained that the current crypto ecosystem is at its development stage. Ergo, it is too early to determine which platform will ultimately determine the course of the smart contract’s future. He noted:

“..it’s still too early to know which platform will win – from attracting and retaining the most vibrant developer communities, to ensuring the platform is high-speed, flexible, and scalable. The beauty of GSCPxE is that investors do not have to choose one winner, and instead can access the development of the smart contract platform ecosystem through a singular investment vehicle.”

Smart contracts are a kind of transaction protocol that runs on blockchain to enable automatic contract execution when pre-determined programmed conditions are met. These platforms are utilized to create Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and NFT-related protocols and allow for efficiency and cost reduction. Currently, Ethereum is the largest decentralized smart contracts platform with more than $118.48 billion in total-value locked.