This is Why Grayscale Launches Lido DAO and Optimism Trusts

Grayscale announced today that it’s offering two new investment vehicles – a Trust based on Lido DAO (LDO) and one on Optimism (OP). Both these trusts are currently available.

The firm claimed that Lido DAO and Optimism have similar potential to contribute to Ethereum’s blockchain ecosystem. Both assets have also undergone similar price trajectories in the past year.

Grayscale Creates New Trusts Based on 2 Altcoins

Grayscale, one of the largest Bitcoin ETF issuers, delivered this news today via a press release. The Lido DAO and Optimism Trusts will both offer exposure to the protocols’ respective tokens. However, the firm did call attention to Ethereum, both protocols’ underlying blockchain.

“Grayscale Lido DAO Trust and Grayscale Optimism Trust provide investors with exposure to protocols helping to increase Ethereum’s efficiency, security, scalability, and adoption within the broader DeFi ecosystem – playing a critical role in the Ethereum story,” said Grayscale’s Head of Product & Research, Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary.

The firm has employed this tactic before, producing a non-ETF Trust that offers exposure to cryptoassets. Grayscale converted a pre-existing Trust product into a Bitcoin ETF and made two new Trusts in November. It created an XRP Trust at the beginning of the month, while other firms applied for an ETF and one based on XLM weeks later.

Both protocols share a few similarities beyond their use of Ethereum. Optimism, a rollup scaling solution, has seen dramatic price moves in the last year. Although the generalized crypto bull market has given it healthy new momentum, Optimism’s token value suffered immense blows earlier this year.

Lido, an Ethereum staking solution, has gone on a similar roller coaster this year. It suffered from a bug in Solana service in April, which resulted in massive negative publicity.

However, there have been positive technological developments, such as the integration of Chainlink CCIP in October

In other words, Grayscale may have chosen Lido DAO and Optimism because of these impressive rebounds, on top of their potential to benefit the Ethereum network. Grayscale already has an Ethereum ETF, but it has performed poorly. However, both these Ethereum-connected products are showing much stronger momentum.