VanEck To Support Ethereum Development With 10% of Ether ETF Profits

VanEck, a global investment manager commanding $80B in assets, announced plans to donate a share of the profits generated from its forthcoming ETH futures exchange-traded fund to support Ethereum development.

On Sept. 29, VanEck said it intends to donate 10% of the ETF's profits to the Protocol Guild, a collective of 152 Ethereum core developers for at least 10 years. VanEck described the group as “instrumental” in maintaining Ethereum’s core protocol.

“If TradFi stands to gain from the efforts of Ethereum's core contributors, it makes sense that we also give back to their work, VanEck tweeted. “We urge other asset managers/ETF issuers to consider also giving back in the same way.”

Protocol Guild has previously received support from leading teams within the Ethereum ecosystem, including Uniswap, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Lido.

VanEck announced the VanEck Ethereum ETF (EFUT) on Sept. 28, igniting bullish momentum in the Ether markets.

However, the ETF will exclusively invest in cash-settled Ether futures traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange rather than the underlying asset directly, meaning EFUT’s operations will not drive up the scarcity of ETH’s supply.

Ether is up 5% in the past seven days, ranking it as the week’s 17th-best-performing top 100 cryptocurrency, according to CoinGecko.

VanEck also launched a Bitcoin futures ETF in November 2021. The fund currently manages $45.5M worth of assets.