Grayscale’s Artificial Intelligence crypto sector returned 54% in September, more than doubling the 24% gain recorded by the broader crypto market under the firm’s six-sector framework. The figures appeared in a research note published Oct. 2 by Zach Pandl, Grayscale’s head of research. Pandl attributed the rally to investors’ early recognition of blockchains as infrastructure for the emerging agent economy, including payments, identity, private computation and verifiable records. NEAR led the sector with a 183% monthly gain, followed by VVV at 70%, WLD at 47% and TAO at 37%. AI tokens also rose about 9.7% on Sept. 22. Despite the rally, the sector remained the smallest in Grayscale’s taxonomy, with a market capitalization of approximately $15 billion. Grayscale launched its Decentralized AI Fund in 2024, holding NEAR, TAO, RENDER and FIL, and rebalanced the fund in early August 2026. On Sept. 22, the firm rebranded its Bitcoin Miners ETF as the Grayscale AI Compute ETF, trading under the ticker GCPU, which now tracks the Indxx High Performance Computing Index and focuses on high-performance computing equities and futures.