The product dubbed VanEck Vectors Digital Assets Equity UCITS ETF will be publicly available on the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Boerse.
VanEck, a global investment manager, announced the launch of an exchange-traded fund ETF in Europe to expose investors to companies that are steering the digital transformation for the global economy, particularly the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry. The product dubbed VanEck Vectors Digital Assets Equity UCITS ETF will be publicly available on the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Boerse under the ticker DAPP with a total expense ratio (TER) of 0.65%.
Notably, the newly launched ETF will track the MVIS Global Digital Assets Equity Index that is composed of companies that at least make 50% of their revenue from digital assets. “It’s great to see a pure-play crypto equity ETF come to market in Europe,” Gabor Gurbacs, digital asset director at VanEck, told CoinDesk Thursday. “It’s the first of its kind.”
VanEck and the Cryptocurrency ETF Market
VanEck launched a similar product through the Nasdaq earlier this year. Moreover, the firm is awaiting the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to make a ruling on a Bitcoin ETF at least in June.
The company anticipates the current Bitcoin ETF filed with the SEC will be approved based on the market growth. Furthermore, the SEC approved Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ: COIN) IPO, painting a picture the cryptocurrency industry is here to stay.
“The digitalization of the global economy has been picking up steam for the past several years, and as digital assets1 mature, this has driven the growth of several innovative companies – not only miners of digital assets but also digital asset exchanges, payments, services, storage, e-commerce and much more,” said Ed Lopez, Managing Director, Head of ETF Product for VanEck. “To this point, however, investors have had to choose among funds that too often included companies only tangentially involved with digital assets. That is something we’ve sought to solve with the launch of DAPP, a fund we’re very excited to be bringing to market.”
Although the cryptocurrency industry has surpassed $2 trillion in market capitalization, some analysts still think the market is not yet mature enough for the SEC to approve a Bitcoin ETF. Ark Investment Management CEO Cathie Wood recently told an audience she thinks the bitcoin market might need to see $2 trillion in demand before the SEC is comfortable with an ETF.
All prior Bitcoin ETFs filed to the SEC were disqualified by the prior administration. However, the cryptocurrency industry anticipates a change with the Biden administration through newly appointed SEC chair Gary Gensler.
However, the conversation might be still premature based and perhaps down on the list of things to be accomplished. “It’s certainly too early to say what his view will be on crypto, whether it will be a priority, what that will do to influence the market, and I think that may even be a premature conversation,” noted Matthew Hougan, the chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management.