VanEck introduces its first cryptocurrency multi-token fund

• Ayushi Abrol
• February 01, 2022

Working as a global investment management firm headquartered in New York, VanEck is all set to take its next big flight with the launch of a multi-token crypto fund in its cluster. Coming as the first-ever crypto-focused product by VanEck, the fund is listed as an Exchange-Traded Note or ETN on highly-acclaimed trading portals, namely, Deutsche Borse Xetra and SIX Swiss exchanges. The fund will operate with a diverse portfolio of market-leading tokens such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Polkadot (DOT), Solana (SOL), Tron (TRX), Avalanche (AVAX), and Polygon (MATIC).

The VanEck ecosystem offers a strong and powerful cluster of tools and services dedicated to streamlining finance and trading opportunities for customers. The financial entity boasts of a whopping value of $82 billion in the Assets Under Management (AUM) category involving Exchange-traded Funds, mutual funds, and institutional accounts on its portal. With the new crypto fund, the company is gearing up to place its first steps into the fast-growing crypto sector.

Talking about the project, co-head of VanEck Europe, Gijs Koning emphasized the reasons why the group ventured into the digital currency space. The chief stated that the team began exploring the crypto world in early 2017. They realized that virtual assets can offer a store of value substitute to fiat, gold, and other technological products and thus reduce costs in the payments and investing sector.

The crypto products offered by VanEck are gaining momentum in the European market space. However, the firm has been facing various issues concerning the regulatory guidelines in the United States. In the U.S, the financial products by VanEck are limited to private virtual currency funds for institutional investors and only stock-focused ETFs involving firms using blockchain technology. Earlier in November, the U.S. SEC rejected VanEck’s application focused on Bitcoin spot ETF project.

The SEC revealed that the exchange responsible for listing the ETF, Cboe BZX, did not have a reliable surveillance-sharing contract with markets involved in trading of respective virtual assets. The financial watchdog rejected the application of Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust spot ETF citing the same reason. The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF and Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF received the green signal from the SEC for their respective projects as they tracked the price of regulated BTC futures contracts rather than its spot price collected from averages of multiple exchange platforms.