New York, Oct. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Grayscale Investments®, the world’s largest digital currency asset manager, today announced that Grayscale® Zcash Trust, Grayscale® Stellar Lumens Trust, and Grayscale® Horizen Trust (the Trusts) have begun trading on the OTCQX® Best Market, the top tier operated by OTC Markets Group Inc., under symbols ZCSH, GXLM, and HZEN, respectively.
The Trusts are open-ended trusts sponsored by Grayscale and are intended to enable exposure to the price movement of the Trusts’ underlying assets through an investment vehicle, avoiding the challenges of buying, storing, and safekeeping the assets directly.
“This is an important milestone for digital currencies, and demonstrates Grayscale’s continued commitment to moving each of our products from a private placement to the public markets,” said Craig Salm, Grayscale’s Head of Legal. “For the past six years, investors have leveraged Grayscale products and the OTCQX Market to gain diversified exposure to the digital currency ecosystem, and we are pleased that they will now – for the first time – be able to access Horizen (HZEN), Stellar Lumens (GXLM), and Zcash (ZCSH) as publicly-quoted securities.”
SECONDARY MARKETS for the PRIVATE PLACEMENTS
Grayscale Zcash Trust (ZCSH), Grayscale Stellar Lumens Trust (GXLM), and Grayscale Horizen Trust (HZEN) have offered a private placement to accredited investors since October 2017, December 2018, and August 2018, respectively.
As of October 17, 2021, there were 3,777,700 Shares outstanding of Grayscale Zcash Trust and each share represented ownership of 0.09052055 ZEC. As of October 17, 2021, there were 824,600 Shares outstanding of Grayscale Stellar Lumens Trust and each share represented ownership of 93.0860093 XLM. As of October 17, 2021, there were 6,838,000 Shares outstanding of Grayscale Horizen Trust and each share represented ownership of 0.09231138 ZEN. Shares created through the Trusts’ respective private placements become eligible to sell into the public market after a statutory one-year holding period under Rule 144 of the Securities Act.*
Investors will be able to buy and sell freely-tradable ZCSH, GXLM and HZEN shares through their investment accounts in the same manner as they would other unregistered securities.
INVESTMENT OBJECTIVE
The investment objective of each Trust is for the Shares (based on assets per share) to reflect the value of the digital currency held by the Trust, determined by reference to the applicable CoinDesk index or reference rate at 4:00 p.m. New York time, less the Trust’s expenses and other liabilities.
CoinDesk's ZCX Index is the reference for Grayscale Zcash Trust, CoinDesk's XLMX Index is the reference for Grayscale Stellar Lumens Trust, and CoinDesk's ZEN Reference Rate is the reference for Grayscale Horizen Trust. The Trusts will not generate any income, and regularly distribute their underlying assets to pay for their ongoing expenses. Therefore, the amount of assets represented by each respective Share gradually decreases over time.
The Trusts are not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and are not subject to disclosure and certain other requirements mandated by U.S. securities laws.
GRAYSCALE PRODUCT FAMILY
Grayscale's investment products are available to institutional and individual accredited investors through their respective periodic and ongoing private placements. In addition to its Zcash (ZEC), Stellar Lumens (XLM), and Horizen (ZEN) offerings, Grayscale’s single-asset investment products provide exposure to Bitcoin (BTC), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Chainlink (LINK), Decentraland (MANA), Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Filecoin (FIL), Litecoin (LTC), and Livepeer (LPT). Grayscale also offers investors exposure to digital assets through its diversified products, Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund, which provides coverage of the upper 70% of the digital currency market by market capitalization, and Grayscale DeFi Fund, which provides exposure to a selection of industry-leading DeFi protocols through a market-capitalization weighted portfolio designed to track the CoinDesk DeFi Index . As of October 15, 2021, Grayscale managed approximately $52 billion in assets.
ZCSH, GXLM, and HZEN represent Grayscale’s seventh, eighth, and ninth publicly-quoted investment products. Grayscale® Bitcoin Trust (OTCQX: GBTC), Grayscale® Bitcoin Cash Trust (OTCQX: BCHG), Grayscale® Ethereum Trust (OTCQX: ETHE), Grayscale® Ethereum Classic Trust (OTCQX: ETCG), Grayscale® Litecoin Trust (OTCQX: LTCN), and Grayscale® Digital Large Cap Fund (OTCQX: GDLC) are also publicly-quoted and available to all investors with access to U.S. securities. Investors will be able to find current financial disclosure and Real-Time Level 2 quotes for Shares on www.otcmarkets.com/stock/ZCSH/disclosure once trading for ZCSH commences, www.otcmarkets.com/stock/GXLM/disclosure once trading for GXLM commences and www.otcmarkets.com/stock/HZEN/disclosure once trading for HZEN commences.
*The Trusts offer a private placement to accredited investors. Because the Trusts do not currently operate redemption programs, there can be no assurance that the value of the Shares will approximate the value of the respective digital assets held by the Trusts, less the Trusts’ expenses and other liabilities, and the Shares may trade at a substantial premium over, or a substantial discount to, such value and the Trusts may be unable to meet their respective investment objectives.
This press release is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security in any jurisdiction where such an offer or solicitation would be illegal, nor shall there be any sale of any security in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of that jurisdiction.
About Grayscale Investments®
Founded in 2013, Grayscale Investments is the world’s largest digital currency asset manager, with more than $52B in assets under management as of October 15, 2021. Through its family of investment products, Grayscale provides access and exposure to the digital currency asset class in the form of a security without the challenges of buying, storing, and safekeeping digital currencies directly. With a proven track record and unrivaled experience, Grayscale’s products operate within existing regulatory frameworks, creating secure and compliant exposure for investors. Grayscale products are distributed by Genesis Global Trading, Inc. (Member FINRA/SIPC, MSRB Registered). For more information, please visit grayscale.com and follow @Grayscale.
