DOT over the counter? Osprey Funds set to launch Polkadot investment trust

In a market once dominated by a handful of BTC vehicles, there are now a growing number of products offering investors access to gains from popular altcoins like Polkadot. 

Yesterday, Osprey Funds announced the launch of the Osprey Polkadot Trust. The fund, which will be available to accredited investors with a $25,000 minimum, is set to be listed on the OTCQX market “as soon as possible,” per a press release from the company. Coinbase will serve as the fund's custodian. 

The fund will give investors access to one of the largest layer one smart contract chains via familiar rails, and joins a growing list of digital assets equity investors can now gain exposure to.

“The appetite for next generation crypto investment vehicles is only increasing,” said Osprey CEO Greg King. “Osprey is just getting started on a series of compelling investment funds that will provide access to some of the most exciting coins and tokens.”

Osprey has positioned itself as a competitor to investment giant Greyscale, which currently offers 14 digital asset investment trusts, per the Greyscale website. Osprey’s OBTC fund boasts a .49% management fee, which they claim makes it the “lowest-cost publicly traded bitcoin fund in the U.S.”

The choice to offer a Polkadot fund may be in an effort to gain an edge on Greyscale. DOT is not among the assets Greyscale offers funds for, and it isn’t part of the “Large Cap” trust despite being the fourth-largest layer one smart contract token by marketcap, meaning Osprey may be catering to a market demand that isn’t presently serviced.

King told Cointelegraph that the decision to offer a DOT fund was part a vote of confidence in the growing ecosystem, as well as an effort to offer a wider range of digital asset investment vehicles.

"Our decision to launch a Polkadot trust next is both a vote of confidence and also addresses the market’s need for access vehicles. We believe Polkadot shows significant promise and is still in the very early stages. Every product we launch will be something the Osprey team has researched and believes is a sustainable crypto project with significant investment potential," he said.

Polkadot is among the growing number of non-Ethereum chains that have been seeing a spike in organic developer activity. Earlier this month six top ecosystem projects joined together to create an index token, PINT, and Clover Finance made DeFi migration easier with an Ethereum-to-Polkadot bridge.