VanEck Unveils Tokenised US Treasury Fund
The investment giant's entry into the tokenised space US Treasuries brings $6.9 billion market to a new level of competition.
VanEck has launched a tokenised US Treasury fund accessible across four blockchains, intensifying competition in the rapidly expanding market for real-world assets (RWAs) on-chain.
The fund, dubbed VBILL, allows investors to gain exposure to US Treasury bills through tokens available on Avalanche, BNB Chain, Ethereum and Solana, with interoperability facilitated by Wormhole.
"Tokenised funds like VBILL are enhancing market liquidity and efficiency, underscoring our commitment to providing value to our investors," said Kyle DaCruz, VanEck's Director of Digital Assets Product.
The barriers to entry remain firmly in institutional territory.
Minimum subscriptions start at $100,000 for investments on Avalanche, BNB Chain, and Solana.
For Ethereum-based exposure, that minimum jumps to a $1 million, reflecting both the higher gas fees on Ethereum and VanEck's targeting of serious institutional capital.
VanEck joins an increasingly crowded field that includes BlackRock's BUIDL fund, which currently dominates with approximately 40% of the nearly $7 billion tokenised Treasury market.
The launch comes just a day after the SEC's tokenisation-focused roundtable, where Chair Paul Atkins compared securities moving on-chain to the transition of music from vinyl to digital formats.
"Blockchain technology holds the promise to allow for a broad swath of novel use cases for securities, fostering new kinds of market activities that many of the Commission's legacy rules and regulations do not contemplate today," Atkins said.
Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw, a crypto skeptic, wasn’t sold on the tokenisation trend.
Crenshaw questioned the benefits of instant settlement, pointing out that the delay between trade execution and settlement actually provides for "core market functionalities and protection mechanisms."
She then took aim at the technology itself, asking why the SEC – a "tech-neutral regulator" – would focus specifically on blockchain over other types of distributed ledger technologies.
The tokenisation wave represents a fundamental shift in how traditional financial assets are packaged and distributed, potentially offering faster settlement times and bringing liquidity to previously illiquid assets.
Stablecoins, with their $230 billion market cap, function like checking accounts in this new financial system, while yield-bearing tokenised funds like VBILL act as on-chain savings accounts.
The clash between Chair Atkins and the more cautious Crenshaw reveals the tension driving crypto regulation: how to embrace technological advancement without undermining the stability of the existing financial system?