Leading crypto-focused asset manager Grayscale Investments launched its Grayscale Dogecoin Trust.
According to a Jan. 31 announcement, the company’s Dogecoin trust will be available to institutional and accredited investors only. The company wrote:
“The Trust offers investors the opportunity to gain exposure to DOGE, the native coin of the Dogecoin network, an open-source peer-to-peer digital currency originally derived from Litecoin, which itself originated from Bitcoin.”
The details
Grayscale Investments highlighted that it believes that Dogecoin transitioned beyond being simply the world’s first memecoin. Instead, the company claims that it is now “a tool for global financial inclusion, grassroots activism, and a viable means of payment. Grayscale’s Head of Product & Research, Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary argued that Dogecoin could see real-world adoption:
“Dogecoin has matured into a potentially powerful tool for promoting financial accessibility. We believe, as a faster, cheaper, and more scalable derivative of Bitcoin, Dogecoin is helping groups underserved by legacy financial infrastructure to participate in the financial system. […] Grayscale Dogecoin Trust offers investors exposure to an asset that is positioned to help fulfill Bitcoin’s originally intended use case and its egalitarian ethos.”
The news follows asset manager Bitwise Asset Management submitting a registration filing for a Dogecoin-backed spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) earlier this month. A potential ETF approval by the SEC would allow institutional investors to acquire exposure to Dogecoin. Furthermore, it could potentially drive more conservative capital to also pour into the memecoin.
Dogecoin recently enjoyed a heightened level of attention after the Elon Musk-led United States Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) launched its website featuring the memecoin.
Musk has been a Dogecoin driver for a long time. In late November the memecoin also rallied amid speculation that he would integrate it into his social media app X, formerly known as Twitter.
At the time of writing, Dogecoin is trading at $0.3365 with a market cap just shy of $50 billion. The current price is still a far cry from DOGE’s all-time-high of $0.7376 reported in early May 2021.
