Almost exactly a year ago, we embarked on a brand refresh for Grayscale. At the time, the industry had just entered its third crypto winter, which we decided to use as an opportunity to focus inward — to reflect on who we are and who we serve, to reinforce our ambitions for growth, to realign on what we needed to do as a business to get there.
Over the last few years, awareness of and investment in crypto has grown exponentially, and Grayscale has evolved and matured as a market-leading asset manager. As we expanded our product lineup, diversified the ways investors can access crypto, and became more vocal on the future of the industry, we began to reach the visual limitations of our brand and our ability to express who we are through it.
Our goal was straightforward: refresh Grayscale’s brand identity in a way that accurately reflects how we see ourselves as a company today, and which could also scale with us into the future.
As we began the process, we asked ourselves — what is the Grayscale spirit, and how do we both preserve and infuse it in all that we do? There are certain fundamental attributes of Grayscale that will never change, and it’s these elements that we prioritized showcasing to the world. Our specialization is crypto. Our focus is on providing investment access, at scale. Our responsibility to investors is evidenced in our commitment to offering regulated financial products. Our identity bridges the known and the unfamiliar.
There were tensions to address, too, and clearer positioning to hone in on. That’s why we made a conscious decision to select new brand colors that are radically different from what we’ve had before. We also intentionally chose live photography over illustration — crypto may be intangible, but we believe it is real in its effects as a technology and investment opportunity. Our new fonts, a classic serif and bold sans serif, represent the dichotomies inherent in Grayscale’s brand and overall position in the investing universe: we are a modern asset manager, engaging in an untraditional, largely decentralized asset class, and delivering access to it through traditional, regulated investment vehicles.
One of our favorite outputs from the brand refresh is what we call the ‘Shares’. As a brand, Grayscale’s vision is to create a share of the future for everyone, by providing investors exposure to what we believe are technologies unlocking the future. The majority of our products are investment funds, of which investors can buy shares of. Visually, the Shares are triangular shapes displayed across our brand in different ways — slices of Grayscale and our offerings. It’s even displayed in our new wordmark: there are tiny Shares cut out of the letters of ‘Grayscale’, a physical manifestation of our vision built right into our logo, and a constant reminder that our work is rooted in expanding access to what may feel like out of reach opportunities.
We are excited to unveil our updated brand to the world. We believe that it is a truer representation of our business and the work we do every day. We acknowledge that it may feel different from our legacy brand and other brands in traditional finance, technology, or crypto. But Grayscale is different. We occupy a unique space as a crypto-specialist asset manager, but even beyond that, our niche will always be to identify the investments of the future and make them accessible to investors through regulated and familiar investment vehicles.
Timing is always a wild card, but in this instance, releasing the new brand now, a year after we began the process and on the eve of Grayscale’s 10th anniversary, we can confidently say that the timing couldn’t feel more right.
Welcome to Grayscale. We’re excited to continue working together.
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