Grayscale Investments expanded its Assets Under Consideration list for the first quarter of 2026 to 36 altcoins, up from 32 in the prior quarter. The update reflects a deliberate push to evaluate tokens across emerging sectors that could feed future investment products.
The firm organized the 36 assets across five sectors: smart contract platforms, financial protocols, consumer & culture tokens, artificial intelligence projects and utilities/services (DePIN). Examples named on the list include established layer and rollup tokens such as Aptos and Arbitrum, financial primitives like Morpho and Pendle, consumer-facing projects and a small set of AI and DePIN plays.
Tron (TRX) was added to the list of candidates within the smart contract platforms category, reinforcing its positioning as an established blockchain focused on scalability and high-throughput decentralized applications. Its inclusion highlights ongoing recognition of Tron’s infrastructure and developer ecosystem as relevant players in the broader smart contract landscape.
Meanwhile, ARIA Protocol (ARIAIP) was listed under the consumer and culture segment, reflecting its alignment with user-centric and culturally driven blockchain use cases. Nous Research was included in the AI cohort, underscoring growing interest in decentralized and crypto-native artificial intelligence initiatives, while DoubleZero (2Z) appeared within the utilities and services category, specifically tied to DePIN, emphasizing its role in decentralized physical infrastructure networks.
Grayscale strategic intent and market implications
Inclusion on the Assets Under Consideration list signals active evaluation rather than a commitment to launch a product. The firm has also registered statutory trusts tied to potential BNB and HYPE ETFs, which the update singled out as evidence of concrete progress toward expanding its product shelf.
By widening its watchlist, Grayscale is aligning its pipeline with several high-growth themes. That posture can influence price discovery and institutional positioning: product launches or approvals derived from this review would likely reallocate demand and affect portfolio strategies across spot and derivatives markets.
Investors and treasuries will now track whether those statutory-trust registrations translate into subsequent filings and approvals, since any new ETF or fund based on this review would be the practical test of Grayscale’s thesis and a driver of flows into the named asset classes.
