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October 31, 2008, a message goes out to the cypherpunk mailing list that reads: I've been working on a new electronic cash system that's fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party. The paper is available at: http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

In 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin: a decentralized, digital store of value free from the control of central authorities. While Satoshi succeeded in creating the largest decentralized digital monetary network in existence with over $750B in market cap (as of March 18, 2022), many argue that the Bitcoin network lacks programmability and has limited use cases beyond serving as a store of value or facilitating simple peer-to-peer transfers of value. In 2015, the first notable smart contract platform, Ethereum, was launched, creating the foundation for an ecosystem of decentralized applications (dApps) to be developed and unleashing the potential use cases for the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

The Postmodern Portfolio is an investment thesis for crypto assets and the role they play through an evolution of Modern Portfolio Theory.

Investments in the metaverse have continued to grow and Facebook’s announcement to shift its focus on the metaverse has sparked a new wave of interest in virtual worlds. While this sector is still in the early stages of growth, it has the potential to transform our increasingly digital lives. As a result, the native tokens and virtual world real estate assets of leading Web 3.0 metaverse economies have been booming.

For the third consecutive year, Grayscale surveyed the investor community to explore attitudes and perspectives around Bitcoin. Despite the regular launch of new currencies, Bitcoin continues to pervade discussions among investors, advisors, financial institutions, media, service providers, regulators, and policymakers. Grayscale conducted this third wave of research to assess how perceptions of Bitcoin have shifted since 2019, particularly as it relates to the following topics:

Crypto cloud economies are the next emerging market investment frontier and the Metaverse is at the forefront of this Web 3.0 internet evolution. The Metaverse is a set of interconnected, experiential, 3D virtual worlds where people located anywhere can socialize in real-time to form a persistent, user-owned, internet economy spanning the digital and physical worlds.

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is an emerging crypto innovation that goes beyond banking and beyond borders to create a new internet-native global financial ecosystem. DeFi has started to reshape global finance and e-commerce, yet the asset category remains mysterious to many investors. Our first Grayscale DeFi Primer offered an overview of DeFi, discussed use cases, and examined the native tokens of several well-known protocols. In this DeFi report, we will take a deeper dive into the financial system powering the Web 3.0 crypto cloud economy.

Since its inception more than a decade ago, Bitcoin has become a popular topic of discussion for investors, advisors, financial institutions, service providers, regulators, and policymakers. As Bitcoin continues to reach a broader mainstream audience, Grayscale is tracking changing attitudes and perspectives around Bitcoin.

Professional investors should feel confident navigating a conversation around Bitcoin. As this asset continues to pervade advisory conversations and investment committee meetings, the unique qualities Bitcoin possesses can make valuation a daunting task.

Bitcoin’s growing popularity, the digitization of payment systems, and the demand for stablecoins have prompted countries to explore central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

As the world grapples with COVID-19, it’s important for investors to understand the effects of government monetary and fiscal intervention, particularly in the context of digital currencies like Bitcoin and the unique attributes they possess.

With activity growing on Ethereum, a public blockchain that facilitates the execution of complex autonomous applications, investors are wondering how exactly to value the native asset of the network, Ether. In August, Grayscale released a report on Valuing Bitcoin to help investors understand why Bitcoin has value and how they can monitor important underlying metrics.

Over the last decade, Bitcoin has grown from a small-scale experiment into the dominant leader of a new asset class with the potential to revolutionize many aspects of our lives.

Digital assets are an entirely new asset class, created through a combination of computer science, cryptography, economics, and network theory. As they transform our global financial infrastructure and challenge modern monetary theory, we believe digital assets are one of the most exciting investment opportunities of the 21st century.

Since its introduction in 2009, Bitcoin has steadily grown in popularity and today has expanded its reach to a broad mainstream audience. Now, a new joint survey from Grayscale Investments and Q8 Research provides a deeper level of insight into investors’ interests, perceptions, and misconceptions about investing in Bitcoin.

Financial crises are happening more frequently and span across many geopolitical regions. For example, during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) between October 2007 and March 2009, the S&P 500 and several of its global equity counterparts lost more than half of their value, erasing decades of wealth accumulation and challenging our understanding of market efficiency and systemic risk.

The next Bitcoin halving will take place in May 2020. At that time, the block reward for miners on the Bitcoin network will decrease from 12.5 to 6.25 bitcoins, the third such “halving” event in the network’s history.

Horizen – an end-to-end encrypted platform over which money, messages, and media can be securely and privately transmitted and stored – addresses growing concerns over the right to privacy in the Digital Age.

Ethereum Classic is a next-generation blockchain platform for a new internet infrastructure. Featuring a flexible and intuitive smart contract programming platform that is powered by its associated token, ETC, Ethereum Classic has the potential to dramatically enhance the ways that information and value are shared in the digital economy.

Zcash was publicly launched on October 28, 2016, by a team of world-class cryptographers, engineers, and computer scientists from the Zerocoin Electric Coin Company, or the Zcash Company, as one of many new digital currency projects intended to expand upon the capabilities of Bitcoin.