Ethena rises 4% after Grayscale adds it to DeFi fund during first quarter rebalancing
Grayscale Investments this week rebalanced its crypto portfolios as part of its fund rebalancing in the first quarter of 2026. The firm removed Aerodrome Finance from its DeFi Fund and replaced it with Ethena, a yield-focused decentralized finance protocol.
Ethena rose 4.33% in the past 24 hours after the announcement. Grayscale also made adjustments to its Smart Contract Fund, although no new assets were added to that portfolio.
Ethena replaces the airport
The biggest change came in Grayscale’s DeFi Fund. Under the CoinDesk DeFi Select Index methodology, the company sold AERO and parts of other existing holdings to buy $ENA.
As of May 1, 2026, the plan assets amounted to:
- Uniswap (UNI) – 35.22%
- Aave (AAVE) – 21.36%
- Ondo (ONDO) – 19.83%
- Ethena ($ENA) – 13.59%
- Curve (CRV) – 5.27%
- Lido DAO (LDO) – 4.73%
Smart Contract Fund remains focused on layer 1
Grayscale also adjusted the weightings of its Smart Contract Fund using the CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Select Capped Index methodology. Unlike the DeFi Fund, no assets have been removed or added.
The updated assignments are:
- Ethereum (ETH) – 30.14%
- Solana (SOL) – 29.69%
- Cardano (ADA) – 17.96%
- Avalanche (AVAX) – 7.69%
- Hedera (HBAR) – 7.41%
- Sui (SUI) – 7.11%
The allocation shows that Grayscale still has a strong preference for established smart contract ecosystems led by Ethereum and Solana.
What this means for the market
These updates provide a simple insight into where institutional investors think crypto is going. Grayscale seems to be betting more on DeFi projects related to stablecoins, yield and tokenized assets rather than just trading platforms.
At the same time, the company still has strong exposure to major blockchain ecosystems such as Ethereum and Solana, which continue to dominate developer activity and liquidity in crypto markets.
Overall, these types of rebalances reflect where capital is rotating. The question is whether the flows follow or lag behind.