Grayscale has bridged traditional finance and decentralized crypto by launching the first publicly traded staking investment vehicle. Its staking-enabled ETPs allow investors to earn blockchain rewards without running validator nodes or managing complex technical and custody risks. Grayscale's Ether and Solana ETPs are the first in the US to combine spot crypto exposure with staking rewards, paying yields through the fund's NAV or direct payouts.
Botanix, founded in 2023 at Harvard by Willem Schroé, operates as a Bitcoin Layer Two protocol or sidechain similar to the Liquid Network and Rootstock - but with some novel differences, including the use of more modern scripting tools in Bitcoin, the sharing of network fee revenue with stakeholders and a federation of 16 node operators as its custody foundation.
