Grayscale Debuts XRP Trust Following Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF Launches

Digital asset manager Grayscale today launched a new trust giving investors exposure to XRP, the seventh biggest cryptocurrency by market cap and the coin created by the founders of payments platform Ripple.

In a Thursday announcement, Grayscale said that it believed the asset had the “potential to transform the legacy financial infrastructure.”

The trust will allow investors to buy shares that track the price of XRP, but it will operate differently to its Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved earlier this year. ETFs allow for quicker redemption of shares.

“We believe Grayscale XRP Trust gives investors exposure to a protocol with an important real-world use case,” Grayscale’s Head of Product and Research Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary said in a statement.

XRP has a market cap of $31.6 billion, according to CoinGecko. Its price currently stands at $0.56, a nearly 6% rise over the last 24 hours. The asset’s price shot above $0.57 earlier, following the announcement, but has since dipped.

XRP was created by the founders of Ripple, a fintech company that wants to speed up cross-border payments.

Grayscale helped spur the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs after it sued the SEC in 2022 for rejecting its application to convert its Bitcoin Trust into the sought-after ETF vehicle.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit sided with Grayscale in the lawsuit in August 2023, saying that the regulator lacked reason for denying 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 giving investors exposure to digital coins and tokens, including trusts for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin Cash, Filecoin, Chainlink, Litecoin, and Avalanche.

Edited by Andrew Hayward