VanEck has submitted its application to the SEC to create a groundbreaking exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks Binance’s BNB token and underlying blockchain technology.
Key Points:
- If approved, this ETF would be the first in the U.S. to include staking rewards, indicating a possible change in the SEC’s stance on permitting staking in ETFs under the leadership of new chair Paul Atkins.
- A conclusive decision from the SEC is still several months away; VanEck must first file a 19b-4 form, which would require the agency to address the proposal within a specified duration.
The asset manager has also filed an S-1 document with the SEC, marking itself as the initial applicant for a BNB ETF in the U.S. BNB, which was introduced by Binance in 2017, serves as the native token for the BNB Chain.
Should the ETF receive approval, investors would be granted the opportunity to earn staking rewards along with other incentives. This presents a potential shift from previous SEC directives, which were mainly opposed to staking functionalities, leading to certain spot Ethereum ETFs lacking this feature.
However, there is optimism that the new SEC chair will support staking features for forthcoming financial products. Recently, Grayscale revised its documentation with the SEC to enable staking for its Ethereum ETFs, while Canary Capital has filed a recent proposal for a Tron ETF that includes staking options.
Decisions regarding these applications are pending from the SEC, which has affected several timelines related to cryptocurrency ETFs in recent times.
VanEck will subsequently need to follow up on its initial filing with a 19b-4 document to formalize its plans and impose a timeline on the regulator.
At the time of writing, BNB holds a market cap of approximately $83.9 billion and was trading at $596, reflecting a slight increase of 0.27% over the last 24 hours, positioning it as the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
