Asset manager VanEck has applied for U.S. regulatory approval to list an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would hold BNB Chain's native token, BNB, according to a regulatory filing on Friday.
The ETF is designed to accumulate spot BNB (BNB) tokens and "may, from time to time, stake a portion of the [fund's] assets through one or more trusted staking providers," according to the ETF's S-1 prospectus. The filing marks the first time an asset manager has applied for a BNB ETF in the United States.
The BNB token has a market capitalization of roughly $84 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap. As of Friday, BNB stakers earn a yield of approximately 2.5%, according to data from Stakingrewards.com. Binance's BNB Chain is also among the most popular smart contract networks, with a total value locked (TVL) of nearly $6 billion, according to data from DefiLlama.
The filing comes days after Binance co-founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao said he expects the popularity of Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs to eventually "spill over" into altcoins.
"This cycle so far has been the ETFs. And it's almost all Bitcoin. Ether hasn't had as much success but Bitcoin success will spill over to the others eventually," CZ said during the Token2049 conference in Dubai, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs have attracted net inflows of more than $40 billion since launching in January of 2024, according to data from Farside Investors.
VanEck's filing is the newest in a flurry of filings seeking to list ETFs holding altcoins. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has acknowledged dozens of cryptocurrency ETF proposals since U.S. President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20. They include plans for ETFs holding native layer-1 tokens such as Solana (SOL) as well as memecoins such as Dogecoin (DOGE).
VanEck has also filed to list other cryptocurrency ETFs over the past few months, including funds holding Solana and Avalanche (AVAX).
