TLDR
- Grayscale has launched a new Decentralized AI Fund for accredited investors.
- The fund includes tokens from Bittensor, Filecoin, Livepeer, Near, and Render.
- It focuses on three areas: AI services, solutions to centralized AI problems, and AI infrastructure.
- The fund aims to provide exposure to the intersection of blockchain and AI technologies.
- This launch reflects growing interest in decentralized AI solutions within the crypto industry.
Grayscale Investments has announced the launch of its new Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund. This fund, available only to accredited investors, aims to provide exposure to the growing sector of decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) protocols within the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
The fund’s basket includes tokens from five projects: Bittensor (TAO), Filecoin (FIL), Livepeer (LPT), Near (NEAR), and Render (RNDR). As of July 16, 2024, the fund’s composition was: Near at 32.99%, Filecoin at 30.59%, Render at 24.86%, Livepeer at 8.64%, and Bittensor at 2.92%.
Grayscale’s new fund focuses on three primary categories of decentralized AI assets.
- First, it includes protocols building decentralized AI services, such as chatbots and image-generation services.
- Second, it targets solutions to problems related to centralized AI use, including authenticity checks against bots, deep fakes, and misinformation.
- Third, it invests in protocols developing AI infrastructure, such as decentralized marketplaces for data storage, GPU computation, 3D rendering, and streaming services.
Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary, Grayscale’s head of product and research, explained the rationale behind the fund:
“The rise of disruptive technologies has created compelling opportunities for Grayscale’s investors since our 2013 inception, and we believe the launch of the Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund provides an opportunity to invest in Decentralized AI at its earliest phase.”
Each token in the fund’s basket plays a unique role in the decentralized AI ecosystem.
- Bittensor offers a marketplace where users can create, train, and share AI models.
- Filecoin provides decentralized storage for large data sets required for AI training and deployment.
- Livepeer is a decentralized video streaming network that uses AI algorithms to transcode and enhance videos.
- Near and Render offer infrastructure for AI-related tasks, including GPU resources for training deep learning models.
The launch of this fund reflects the growing interest in decentralized AI solutions within the crypto industry.
Other notable projects in this space include Sentient, which recently raised $85 million to develop an open-source AI platform, and Sahara, which is building a decentralized AI network for autonomous knowledge agents.
Barry Silbert, founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group (Grayscale’s parent company), expressed enthusiasm about the new fund on social media. He emphasized Grayscale’s aim to leverage technology fully and address the centralization of AI development by distributing ownership and governance through blockchain.
The Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund launches with a net asset value (NAV) per share of $9.87 and holds approximately $551,238.97. The fund will rebalance quarterly to maintain its focus on the most promising decentralized AI projects.
This new offering from Grayscale highlights the increasing synergy between AI and blockchain technologies. As these fields evolve, the potential for decentralized AI to democratize access and enhance transparency in AI services becomes more apparent.
