Latest news with #VanEckVentures
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Stablecoin Boom Has Made Crypto Ramps 'Sexier' M&A Targets, Says VanEck VC
Companies that serve as connective tissue between digital assets and legacy payments systems are getting a glow-up from stablecoins this year, according to VanEck Ventures Managing Partner Juan Lopez. As companies continue to explore new use cases with dollar-pegged tokens, those that help customers swap between cash and crypto are becoming some of the hottest targets for mergers and acquisitions, he told Decrypt in a recent interview. Although they were mostly perceived as a way to let customers easily purchase crypto in the past, Lopez said that on-and-off ramps are increasingly being viewed as valuable touch points for facilitating everyday transactions through stablecoins. 'On-and-off ramp companies initially were the ones that were connecting the legacy payment systems with the sort of blockchain-adjacent systems that exchanges pioneered,' he said. 'Now they can go from simply calling themselves on-and-off ramps to full-fledged payments providers built on this really novel infrastructure, which is a lot sexier.' With last month's passage of stablecoin legislation in the U.S., experts anticipate an explosion of stablecoins under the GENIUS Act. With a federal framework in place, Citigroup said this week that it's exploring a stablecoin, months after Bank of America signaled the same. Lopez said that stablecoins emerged within the crypto industry primarily as a way for exchanges to overcome long settlement times that customers faced when funding accounts, but experimentation has pushed their utility far beyond that. 'On-and-off ramps have been a large driver for some of the new use cases that we hear around stablecoins,' he said, pointing to cross-border remittances and business-to-business payments. Earlier this year, crypto payments service MoonPay acquired Helio and Unstoppable Finance, "underscoring the vision for crypto payments,' according to a report from Architect Partners. The move followed payment giant Stripe's acquisition of stablecoin platform Bridge last year, one of the largest deals in the industry's history valued at $1.1 billion. Ripple said earlier this month that it would purchase Rail, a Toronto-based payments platform, for $200 million. Ripple highlighted the firm's ability to offer 'comprehensive stablecoin pay-ins and pay-outs' without requiring a company to hold crypto on its balance sheet. Fed Ends Supervisory Program Overseeing Banks' Crypto Activity Lopez noted that the licenses on-and-off ramp companies own could be a factor as well, letting companies expand into new businesses or jurisdictions than they could otherwise. 'It's really a time-to-market value,' he said. 'If there's a particular player that wants to enter a particular business, they can do so much faster they can acquire a business that's gone through all the regulatory hurdles to actually be licensed to operate.'
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
VanEck to Launch New ETF Tracking Crypto Stocks
Fund manager VanEck has the greenlight from the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a new crypto ETF tracking crypto-related stocks. The Onchain Economy ETF (NODE) seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing in at least 80% of its net assets in "Digital Transformation Companies and/or Digital Asset Instruments," like those that run exchanges and engage in crypto mining, according to the SEC filing. The management fee will be 0.69%. Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at VanEck, said on X that the actively managed NODE will aim to hold 30 to 60 names from a universe of more than 130 stocks tied to the digital asset economy. The stocks will include exchanges, miners, data centers, energy infrastructure, semiconductors, hardware, TradFi rails, consumer/gaming, asset managers and 'balance sheet HOLDers,' Sigel said. He added that up to 25% of the fund will be in crypto exchange-traded products. The target launch date is May 14. VanEck is no stranger to the world of digital assets. NODE's approval comes less than a month after the firm's VanEck Ventures announced its investment in Manifest, a platform bringing American real estate into decentralized finance (DeFi). VanEck Ventures was introduced last year to support innovation in crypto, fintech and artificial intelligence (AI). The fund manager's digital assets offerings include its spot bitcoin fund, the VanEck Bitcoin ETF (HODL), spot ether fund, the VanEck Ethereum ETF (ETHV), and the VanEck Digital Transformation ETF (DAPP), which tracks a market-cap-weighted index of companies involved in the digitalization of the world's economy through a diverse range of digital assets. 'The global economy is shifting to a digital foundation,' Sigel said via X. 'NODE offers active equity exposure to the real businesses building that future.'Permalink | © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
VanEck to Launch New ETF Tracking Crypto Stocks
Fund manager VanEck has the greenlight from the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a new crypto ETF tracking crypto-related stocks. The Onchain Economy ETF (NODE) seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing in at least 80% of its net assets in "Digital Transformation Companies and/or Digital Asset Instruments," like those that run exchanges and engage in crypto mining, according to the SEC filing. The management fee will be 0.69%. Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at VanEck, said on X that the actively managed NODE will aim to hold 30 to 60 names from a universe of more than 130 stocks tied to the digital asset economy. The stocks will include exchanges, miners, data centers, energy infrastructure, semiconductors, hardware, TradFi rails, consumer/gaming, asset managers and 'balance sheet HOLDers,' Sigel said. He added that up to 25% of the fund will be in crypto exchange-traded products. The target launch date is May 14. VanEck is no stranger to the world of digital assets. NODE's approval comes less than a month after the firm's VanEck Ventures announced its investment in Manifest, a platform bringing American real estate into decentralized finance (DeFi). VanEck Ventures was introduced last year to support innovation in crypto, fintech and artificial intelligence (AI). The fund manager's digital assets offerings include its spot bitcoin fund, the VanEck Bitcoin ETF (HODL), spot ether fund, the VanEck Ethereum ETF (ETHV), and the VanEck Digital Transformation ETF (DAPP), which tracks a market-cap-weighted index of companies involved in the digitalization of the world's economy through a diverse range of digital assets. 'The global economy is shifting to a digital foundation,' Sigel said via X. 'NODE offers active equity exposure to the real businesses building that future.'Permalink | © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
VanEck Invests in DeFi Real Estate Platform Manifest
In a statement posted to social media platform X, General Partner at VanEck Ventures Wyatt Lonergan and Partner Juan Lopez announced the firm's investment in Manifest, a platform bringing American real estate into decentralized finance (DeFi). Manifest, which is 'launching soon' according to its website, offers a 'tokenized ETF' $USH (U.S. Housing) backed by home equity investments (HEIs). 'Manifest is actually pioneering a new kind of tokenization in our view by applying ETF-style diversification to U.S. real estate and packaging it as a smart contract available across public blockchains,' Lopez told 'Unlike conventional ETFs trading on legacy exchanges, $USH brings the benefits of blockchain—liquidity, programmability and global accessibility—to real estate exposure in a way that hasn't been done before.' What's most important about today's announcement for ETF investors is that there will soon be an option to invest in diversified U.S. real estate that is not tied to real estate investment trusts (REITs) or direct ownership, Manifest Founder and CEO Nathaniel Sokoll-Ward told He added that instead of using a product like the Vanguard Real Estate ETF (VNQ), where the assets are predominantly real estate rental businesses, investors will have 'the option to gain capital-efficient, direct exposure to the dominant real estate asset class in the country: owner-occupied single-family residential real estate equity.' 'Manifest's $USH represents a significant evolution beyond traditional real estate ETFs. By leveraging blockchain technology, $USH enhances liquidity, capital efficiency and tax advantages,' Sokoll-Ward said. 'Unlike publicly traded REIT ETFs—subject to stock market volatility, centralized management, limited trading hours and high fees—$USH is fully on-chain and backed by Home Equity Investments.' He added that this structure 'eliminates intermediaries, reduces fees, increases transparency and ensures that all assets are fully collateralized by real estate equity.' VanEck Ventures, which co-led Manifest's $2.5 million pre-seed funding round with Lattice Fund, was launched by the fund giant last October. The $30 million early-stage fund marked VanEck's expansion into venture capital and was created to invest in 'visionary founders operating at the intersection of fintech, digital assets and artificial intelligence.' 'Tokenized financial products like $USH represent the natural next step in asset management. They introduce 24/7 liquidity, seamless global settlement and accessibility, and direct programmability,' Lopez said. 'These are the features that bolstered growth in DeFi and stablecoins over the past few years, which traditional ETFs simply do not have. A developer can't easily access this type of asset and build a product that enables margin against it, for example. Now they can.'Permalink | © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved
