VanEck Cuts Wall Street Out—Tokenizes US Treasury Fund On-Chain
Wall Street’s middlemen just got another blockchain bypass. VanEck—the asset manager that bet big on Bitcoin ETFs—is now tokenizing a US Treasury fund, dragging the $26T government debt market kicking and screaming onto the blockchain.
Why it matters: Forget ’yield farming’ degen plays—this lets crypto natives earn Uncle Sam’s risk-free rates without touching a brokerage account. TradFi gatekeepers are now officially optional.
The cynical take: Nothing says ’institutional adoption’ like repackaging the world’s most boring asset for the crypto casino crowd. At least the yields beat your bank’s 0.01% ’high-interest’ savings account.
VanEck Tokenizes Treasuries with VBILL
VanEck, one of the prominent Bitcoin ETF issuers, has been proposing a few experimental projects lately. It recently suggested using Bitcoin-linked bonds to manage refinancing the US debt, for example, in addition to several novel ETF filings.
Today, VanEck is breaking new ground again with VBILL, which tokenizes US Treasury exposure on the blockchain:
“By bringing US Treasuries on-chain, we are providing investors with a secure, transparent, and liquid tool for cash management, further integrating digital assets into mainstream financial markets. Tokenized funds like VBILL are… underscoring our commitment to providing value to our investors,” claimed Kyle DaCruz, Director of Digital Assets Product at VanEck.
With VBILL, VanEck’s clients gain a digitally native way to access Treasury-backed assets. At launch, the fund is initially available on Avalanche, BNB Chain, Ethereum, and Solana, but it also uses Wormhole to further guarantee interoperability.
Securitize, a prominent tokenization firm, recently integrated Wormhole in a separate blockchain partnership. It will mainly handle logistics and usability issues, involving everything from broker-dealer capabilities to fund administration and more.
VBILL uses USDC on-ramps to enable 24/7 issuance, all recorded on the blockchain. The fund is only meant for qualified and institutional investors. For Avalanche, BNB Chain, and Solana, the minimum buy-in is $100,000, but this increases to $1 million for Ethereum.
Tokenizing US Treasuries may be an important milestone, but retail investors won’t get to participate in this experiment.
US Treasury bonds have been gaining prominence in the crypto space, even before VanEck launched VBILL. Impending stablecoin regulations generally mandate that issuers hold reserves in Treasuries.
As a result, Tether has purchased nearly $100 billion in the last few months. It’s not alone, either, as other issuers are joining the race.
Stablecoin firms need to hold Treasuries themselves, and a tokenized asset like VBILL won’t help them. Still, the crypto industry had generally shown no interest in this market. Now, Tether holds more Treasuries than most governments worldwide. With VBILL, VanEck is providing an easy way for more crypto firms to explore this market.
