In summary
- Cryptocurrency manager Grayscale today launched a new trust that gives investors exposure to XRP, the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
- The trust will allow investors to buy stocks that track the price of XRP, but will operate differently than SEC-approved Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs.
- Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary, Head of Product and Research at Grayscale, highlighted XRP’s potential to transform legacy financial infrastructure.
Cryptocurrency manager Grayscale today launched a new trust that gives investors exposure to XRP, the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, created by the founders of payments platform Ripple.
In an announcement Thursday, Grayscale said it believed the asset had the “potential to transform legacy financial infrastructure.”
The trust will allow investors to buy shares that track the price of XRP, but will operate differently than its Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved earlier this year. ETFs allow for faster redemption of shares.
“We believe the Grayscale XRP Trust provides investors with exposure to a protocol with a significant real-world use case,” Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary, Head of Product and Research at Grayscale, said in a statement.
XRP has a market cap of $31.6 billion, according to CoinGecko. Its price currently stands at $0.56, up nearly 6% over the past 24 hours. The asset’s price rose above $0.57 earlier following the announcement, but has since fallen back.
XRP was created by the founders of Ripple, a fintech company that wants to speed up cross-border payments.
Grayscale helped push for approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs after it sued the SEC in 2022 for rejecting its application to convert its Bitcoin Trust into the coveted ETF vehicle.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sided with Grayscale in the lawsuit in August 2023, saying the regulator lacked reason to deny the product.
The SEC then went ahead and approved the conversion, along with nine other Bitcoin ETF filings, in January.
The firm also has other products that give investors exposure to digital currencies and tokens, including trusts for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin Cash, Filecoin, Chainlink, Litecoin, and Avalanche.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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