Crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments is debuting its new Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund that seeks to provide accredited investors exposure to protocols at the intersection of blockchain and artificial intelligence.
The fund is currently available only to eligible accredited investors, the firm noted in a press release.
The new Grayscale fund focuses on a basket of decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) crypto protocols. As of July 16, the fund's composition includes Near (NEAR) at 32.99%, Filecoin (FIL) at 30.59%, Render (RNDR) at 24.86%, Livepeer (LPT) at 8.64%, and Bittensor (TAO) at 2.92%.
Grayscale Launches Trusts for Bitcoin Layer-2 Stacks, Near Protocol
Asset manager Grayscale unveiled two new investment trusts on Thursday, offering certain investors exposure to the Bitcoin layer-2 Stacks and Near Protocol, respectively. Limited to accredited investors, the trusts function much in the same as other private placements that Grayscale offers. Among a myriad of offerings, the new trusts join others dedicated to cryptocurrencies like Solana, Chainlink, and Decentraland. “With continued demand for diversified crypto asset exposure, Grayscale remains...
To maintain relevance in the rapidly evolving crypto market, the fund will undergo quarterly rebalancing.
Grayscale said its new fund targets three primary categories of Decentralized AI assets, including protocols building decentralized AI services, ones that address centralized AI-related problems, and infrastructure and resources critical to AI technology development.
"The blockchain-based AI protocols embody the principles of decentralization, accessibility, and transparency, and the Grayscale team feels strongly that these protocols can help mitigate the fundamental risks emerging alongside the proliferation of AI technology," said Grayscale’s Head of Product & Research, Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary.
AI Tokens Surge 15% as Nvidia Tailwinds Boost Fetch.ai and Render
Artificial intelligence (AI) tokens have been booming as the category's total market cap has grown to nearly $28 billion after gaining 15% in the past day, according to CoinGecko data. Leading the charge are tokens like Fetch.ai (FET), which powers an artificial intelligence blockchain for complex machine learning, and Render (RNDR), the token behind a distributed GPU rendering network. FET has surged 30% in just the past day and is up 40% in the past month. RNDR performance in the past day has...
This launch comes amid growing interest in decentralized alternatives to mainstream AI technologies. Just last month, decentralized AI projects got a strong tailwind as publicly traded chip maker Nvidia reported better than expected quarterly earnings.
While the raises and valuations have cooled compared to last year's big AI boom, there's still plenty of venture capital flowing into decentralized AI projects. Earlier this month, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal saw Sentient, of which he is a core contributor, raise $85 million in a round led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund.
"The rapid advancement of AI has the potential to transform every aspect of our lives, but the concentration of power in the hands of a few centralized entities poses significant risks," Nailwal said in a statement at the time. "By building an open platform for AGI development, we aim to ensure that the benefits of AI are distributed equitably and that its development aligns with the interests of humanity as a whole."
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
