Investment firm VanEck has just announced the launch of a tokenized real asset (RWA) fund named VBILL, providing access to U.S. Treasury bills, in partnership with the asset tokenization platform Securitize. This move marks a new step for VanEck into the field of real asset tokenization – a trend that is increasingly attracting traditional financial institutions.
According to a press release on May 13, the VBILL fund will be issued on Avalanche, BNB Chain, Ethereum, and Solana blockchains. The minimum investment is $100,000 for Avalanche, BNB Chain, and Solana blockchains, while Ethereum requires a minimum of $1 million.
VanEck is joining the ranks of traditional financial giants launching RWA funds, such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and Apollo – a company managing $751 billion in assets, which launched a tokenized private credit fund in January.
According to data from RWA.xyz, U.S. Treasury bills with a market capitalization of $6.9 billion are currently the second-largest group of tokenized assets, second only to private credit.
VanEck's partner in the project, Securitize, has currently tokenized over $3.9 billion in assets and previously raised $47 million in a strategic funding round led by BlackRock in May 2024.
Supporters argue that the tokenization of real assets offers significant advantages over traditional finance, including faster settlement times and the ability to create liquidity for inherently illiquid assets.
The SEC chairman likened tokenization to a digital music revolution.
At a seminar on May 12 hosted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Chairman Paul Atkins compared the transfer of securities to blockchain with the shift from analog sound to digital music.
"Just as digital music once transformed the music industry, on-chain securities have the potential to reshape the financial market by creating entirely new methods of issuance, trading, and ownership," Mr. Atkins said.
He emphasized that blockchain technology opens up vast application spaces for the securities market – areas that many current SEC regulations still do not cover.
