Review of Grayscale encryption trust fund performance: New products focus on AI and Sui ecosystem, "Grayscale Select" outperforms the market.

Author: Frank, PANews

In 2025, Grayscale's new product launch pace has clearly accelerated. These products are no longer mainly focused on a single type of cryptocurrency trust, but have created a structural matrix of four types of products: ETFs, publicly traded funds, private equity funds, and active strategies. As the category that best represents Grayscale's exploration of cryptocurrency market targets, the single cryptocurrency trust within the private equity still deserves market attention. PANews once again takes stock of this to see if the "Grayscale Effect" still exists or what new insights it can bring us. (Related reading: A review of 21 Grayscale cryptocurrency trust funds: some have increased tenfold, while others have been in a bear market, could stepping on the last train of a bull market become a market counter-indicator?)

The price cycle for this survey is selected from the closing price on April 9, 2025 (market pullback low) to the closing price on August 13, 2025 (recent market high).

2025 Grayscale Vision: Deepening AI, Sui Ecosystem, and Meme Culture

As of August 2025, Grayscale has launched 6 new single cryptocurrency trust products, involving the following crypto assets: Dogecoin (DOGE), Pyth Network (PYTH), Space and Time (SXT), Story Protocol (IP), DeepBook (DEEP), Walrus (WAL).

From a narrative structure perspective, Grayscale's main market narrative this year has been focused on AI, DeFi, and Sui. In the AI field, Space and Time (SXT) and Story Protocol (IP) are two infrastructure layer products related to AI. In terms of ecology, Grayscale's focus this year seems to be on the Sui ecosystem, having not only launched a private placement trust for the SUI token last August, but also introduced two major Sui ecosystem trust products, DeepBook (DEEP) and Walrus (WAL, all at once this August. Additionally, it is worth mentioning that Dogecoin (DOGE), as Grayscale's first MEME-themed trust product, is also set to be listed in 2025.

From the market performance perspective, the projects launched in 2025 are not particularly impressive. In terms of price performance, these tokens have an average increase of about 70% during this cycle. Although they have outperformed BTC, they still fall slightly short compared to the products launched by Grayscale in other years. This may be because the products launched this year do not essentially belong to market leaders or top-tier assets, but rather resemble Grayscale's strategic positioning in certain potential sectors.

Of course, from the changes in this choice, it can be seen that Grayscale's trust products are no longer solely pursuing the "barometer" of the hottest projects in the market but are also beginning to transform into a potential "reservoir" for discovering opportunities.

In terms of asset management scale, the average asset management scale of several single asset trusts launched in 2025 is approximately $16.73 million, which is significantly lower than the average value of the overall data (average scale of about $32 million). On one hand, this is because these products have been launched for a short time; on the other hand, it may also be due to the market's recognition of these emerging assets not being very high.

"Grayscale Select" continues to outperform the market.

Recently, the overall market performance of Grayscale trust products has shown polarization. The best-performing and the most mediocre products both come from the Sui ecosystem, with DeepBook increasing by 264.58% and Walrus by 6.89%. Among the 27 trust funds surveyed, 8 projects experienced a price increase of over 100% during the statistical period, while 16 projects saw an increase of over 50%, with the average increase across all projects reaching 75.47%. In comparison, the price increase of BTC during the same period was about 56.5%, indicating that the selected targets by Grayscale are significantly superior. Compared to the average of all tokens (during the same period, Binance spot trading pairs), the average price increase is approximately 59.8%. There is also a clear advantage.

From this perspective, although the "grayscale effect" is no longer present, the assets selected for the Grayscale Crypto Trust seem to still play a role as "Grayscale Preferred."

From the perspective of years, the strongest performing group is the products launched in 2024, with an average increase of 89.22%. DeFi and L1 leaders like AAVE, AVAX, and LDO performed exceptionally well during this period, representing the core driving forces of the current cycle. Next are the products from 2018, with an average increase of about 81.98%, primarily driven by the strong performance of established public chains like BCH, LTC, and XLM during this rebound. The performance in 2017 was the worst, with only one product launched that year (excluding BTC and ETH), which was Zcash, with an increase of only 12.89%.

From the perspective of internal performance of the themes, the DeFi and public chain assets selected by Grayscale have outperformed the overall market level on average. Among them, the DeFi assets performed the best, with an average increase of 122%, mainly due to the leading price surge of core DeFi infrastructures such as AAVE, LINK, and LDO during the market recovery.

The performance of public chains is relatively good, but there is a significant differentiation in this area. High-growth ecosystems such as AVAX, SUI, and SOL have performed excellently, while ZEN and OP have been relatively moderate, indicating that the market's choices for public chains are becoming increasingly selective.

In addition, AI categories are currently one of the key areas of focus for Grayscale, with an average increase of about 56%. Although it does not have the same level of enthusiasm as DeFi and public chain projects, it still has an overall increase of more than half.

From "Market Promoter" to "Potential Discoverer"

In the face of intense competition and an increasingly mature market environment in the post-ETF era, Grayscale Investments seems to be undergoing changes. Its product philosophy and market positioning have gradually shifted from being a "market booster" to a "potential trendsetter."

Before 2021, due to the extreme scarcity of compliant investment channels, the "Grayscale Effect" was a powerful "booster" for the market. Any asset included in the Grayscale Trust was equivalent to obtaining the only ticket to enter the mainstream, triggering a nearly certain price increase. At this time, Grayscale was an important introducer of market liquidity.

By 2025, with the proliferation of various ETFs and compliant products, the market channels have greatly diversified. Grayscale's role has shifted to that of a "potential barometer." Its selections are no longer a sufficient condition for price increases, but the direction of its selections is more inclined towards searching for the next success story in a specific track or ecosystem.

The deep layout in the Sui ecosystem and Pyth may explain this shift. Grayscale is no longer satisfied with just providing exposure to SUI tokens but is instead delving into its ecosystem, while also launching trusts for the core DeFi protocol DeepBook and the decentralized storage project Walrus. This is a signal of "sinking," shifting from macro investment narratives in public chains to micro investment ideas that can directly benefit from ecological prosperity. In addition, the investment in Pyth is also aimed at identifying the best potential on the hottest public chain, Solana, to become the next AAVE or Chainlink.

In addition to exploring trust products for single assets, Grayscale is also simultaneously developing portfolio trusts and diversified ETF/ETP products. In 2025, in addition to launching several single cryptocurrency trust products, more types of products will include Bitcoin miner ETFs (MNRS), Bitcoin adopter ETFs (BCOR), as well as a series of option-based ETFs.

It is worth noting that Grayscale recently launched the Grayscale Dynamic Income Fund (GDIF), which is a product specifically designed to invest in staking yields from Proof of Stake (PoS) networks. This also indicates that as the market matures, speculative trading is gradually receding, and the "actual yield" derived from real income from protocols (such as transaction fees and staking rewards) is actually a more stable and preferred method for traditional institutional investors.

In summary, the performance of Grayscale's investment targets and the changes in its investment strategy may provide us with the following two points of reflection.

1. The "grayscale effect" is no longer present, but "grayscale selection" still holds value. The launch of a trust fund for a certain cryptocurrency asset by Grayscale may no longer have much impact on the market, but in the long term, the targets chosen by Grayscale are still worthy of being referenced as research subjects.

2. Infrastructure first. Grayscale's layout repeatedly confirms a simple investment principle: in any emerging gold rush, selling the "pickaxes and shovels" is the most certain business. Whether it's oracle services, DeFi liquidity layers, or data warehouses, investing in the core infrastructure that powers the entire ecosystem is key to navigating through cycles.

3. Traditional capital's enthusiasm for the crypto market is not only about pursuing high returns from a specific asset but is more inclined towards laying out strategies across the entire crypto ecosystem and diversifying investments across multiple assets to balance risks.

The above points may be the inspiration brought to us by Grayscale, this "crypto veteran."