The April 2022Global Financial Stability Report of the IMF has highlighted the consequences of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. The document said that the role of the US dollar was bound to be affected because of the conflict, as it would lead to the introduction of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and the global financial system’s resiliency would also be put to a test. The climate transition goals could also be put at risk because of the priorities associated with energy security. Another issue that would have to be dealt with in the coming years by lawmakers is the ‘cryptoization’ which is likely to occur because emerging markets are experiencing a widespread use of crypto.

IMF cited an increase in crypto trading volumes seen after the introduction of sanctions on Russia to back their statement. This included the financial penalties that had been imposed by Western nations on Russia because of its military invasion. The report said that such cross-border transactions were increasing in the long-term, which means that there would be challenges when it comes to imposing sanctions and managing capital flow. The IMF noted that crypto transactions have increased in both Russia and Ukraine because of the capital restrictions that have been imposed.

However, it is important to note that there has been a fall in liquidity in centralized exchanges where the hryvnia and ruble trading pairs are concerned. Therefore, using crypto exchanges for making large transfers has become rather impractical due to reduced liquidity. But, the IMF admitted that users do have the option of evading some measures via the crypto ecosystem because the identity verification requirements are quite lax in this industry. Hence, the international organization said that blocking new deposits of ruble and freezing crypto assets meant that users could have shifted to non-complying or less transparent crypto platforms and service providers.

Experts at IMF believe that both Russia and Iran could circumvent their respective sanctions via crypto mining. The nations could use their energy resources for generating revenue via crypto mining outside of the traditional financial system. Currently, the countries have a limited share of crypto mining activities, but there is a possibility that it could be increased, considering the size of the mining industry. The IMF quoted estimates showing that almost 11% of the mining revenues of bitcoin could have gone to Russia, which was around $1.4 billion per month, while Iran’s share had been 3%.

In terms of the value of assets under management (AUM), Grayscale Investments is the largest digital currency asset, manager. It has now announced that it is introducing a smart contract fund that comprises of competitors of Ethereum (ETH). There are seven different smart contract coins in the fund, which has been named ‘GSCPxE’ and it is the 18^th investment product that the asset management firm has launched up till now. It is important to note that while the fund is spread out across the landscape of smart contract tokens, it excludes the largest smart contract token out of the equation i.e. ether (ETH).

Therefore, it is named as the ‘Smart Contract Platform Ex-Ethereum Fund’. To put it simply, smart contracts can be used for programming blockchains by the users and the market valuation of all the smart contract coins that exist today is worth $669 billion. The largest smart contract platform is none other than Ethereumbecause it has a market capitalization of $360 million. This is about 53.81% of the total valuation of smart contracts platforms. The announcement by Grayscale on Tuesday shows that it has chosen to add seven smart contract tokens to its fund. The coins that are included are 4.06% stellar (XLM), 4.27% algorand (ALGO), 9.65% polygon (MATIC), 16.16% polkadot (DOT), 16.96% avalanche (AVAX), 24.27% Solana (SOL) and 24.63% Cardano (ADA).

It is the 18^th investment product to have been introduced by Grayscale, but it is also important to note that it is the third diversified fund offering to have been launched. According to the digital asset management company, the fund is open to institutional accredited investors and eligible individuals. Moreover, while Grayscale has disclosed the existing fractions of the respective smart contract coins, it has added that the weightings and holdings can change. The announcement from Grayscale also revealed that the fund would use the Coindesk Smart Contract Platform Elect Ex ETH Index.

Michael Sonnenshein, the chief executive of Grayscale, said on Tuesday that there has been an increase in digital currency diversification. The CEO said that the crypto ecosystem’s ongoing evolution has resulted in the increase in demand for diversified exposure. He said that while the growth of the digital economy relies significantly on smart contract technology, it was still too early to determine which platform would emerge as the winner. This would be in terms of scalability, flexibility, the high-speed of the platform as well as retaining and attracting strong developer communities.

According to Grayscale’s CEO, the good thing about their GSCPxE fund is that people don’t have to go with just one winner. Instead, the fund provides them with the opportunity of using a single investment vehicle for accessing the development of the entire smart contract ecosystem. The introduction of this fund comes after the company added 25 more crypto assets at the end of January to its investment products. The total AUM of the asset manager is close to $40 billion. In the first week of February, Grayscale had also launched an ETF with Bloomberg named Grayscale Future of Finance ETF (GFOF).