Original | Odaily Planet Daily

Author | jk

The rise of VanEck, an investment firm focused on ETFs, is full of bold innovations and strategic decisions. From launching a gold ETF to the recent Solana ETF, VanEck continues to break through itself, driving changes in the financial markets. With the rapid development of the cryptocurrency market, VanEck is at the forefront of the industry, applying for a Solana ETF and opening up new investment opportunities for investors.

In this article, Odaily will delve into VanEck's founding history and its decision from gold ETFs to Solana ETFs.

History of VanEck

In 1955, John van Eck founded Van Eck Global, taking advantage of the rising international stock market in the aftermath of the Marshall Plan and the opening of Western Europe to American investors, aiming to bring post-World War II investment opportunities to American investors. His father immigrated to the United States from the Netherlands in the early 20th century. In the same year, Van Eck established the first international equity mutual fund.

In 1968, the company launched one of the first gold funds in the United States, the International Investors Gold Fund, and shifted much of its portfolio to stocks of gold mining companies. In the 1970s to mid-1980s, gold experienced a bull run, and the company achieved significant success. The International Investors Gold Fund attracted a large number of subscriptions, with assets under management exceeding $1 billion. John van Eck was invited to participate in popular talk shows at the time, such as The Wall Street Journal and The Merv Griffin Show.

1980 to the early 20th century: Low point

However, the boom in the gold market ended after the mid-1980s, and the company's business slowed down. By February 1998, the assets of the International Investors Gold Fund had shrunk to $250 million. John's son Jan said, "He became a gold bug. Basically, the value of gold has been declining throughout my career, which means you're suffering redemptions, and the fund is depreciating because the gold price has fallen from $800 an ounce to a low of $250 an ounce."

To cope with the decline of the gold market, the company began developing investment businesses in emerging Asian markets in the 1990s. In 1996, the company signed a joint venture protocol with Shenwan Hongyuan, the predecessor of Shenwan Hongyuan Group, to tap into China's fund market. However, the demand for emerging market funds plummeted during the Asian financial crisis in 1997. One of the company's funds, Van Eck Asia Dynasty Fund, saw its assets under management drop from $46.3 million at the end of 1996 to $11.2 million at the end of 1997.

From 1994 to 1998, the assets managed by the company decreased by 21% from $1.82 billion to $1.44 billion. In 1997, metal prices reached the lowest point in 12 years. Only its Global Hard Assets Fund achieved a positive return of 26% in the three years ending in December 1997. As a result, the company experienced redemptions and a shrinking client base.

After 2006

In 2006, the company decided to enter the ETF business and launched its first ETF product, Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF, which allowed investors to access the gold market through the stock market instead of directly investing in gold. Although not as popular as the SPDR Gold Shares launched in November 2004, its managed assets grew to $5 billion, becoming one of the company's largest successes. By November 2009, the company had issued more than 20 ETF products, with total managed assets reaching $9.7 billion.

John van Eck often travels abroad for business, especially in Europe. During one trip, he met Sigrid, a German woman 20 years his junior, and brought her back to the United States to marry. She later became the Chief Financial Officer of VanEck and the mother of two children. In the early 1990s, his sons Derek and Jan joined the company, and VanEck launched a series of business initiatives, with a focus on ETFs, bringing significant rise. Since Derek's passing in 2010, Jan has been managing the company's continuously rising global business, continuing to do so to this day. Jan graduated from Stanford Law School and, inspired by technology entrepreneurs, joined the family business and began the transformation of ETFs.

Jan van Eck, "My father valued economics and history very much, while I am more of a business-oriented person, which allows me to seize the opportunity of ETFs and shift towards non-active managed gold funds."

In Europe, VanEck opened its first office in 2008, focusing on index business. It then opened a Swiss office in 2010, with a focus on following institutional distribution and alternative and active investment management strategies. In 2018, VanEck acquired Dutch ETF provider Think ETF Asset Management B.V. to expand its ETF product portfolio in Europe and international markets.

On March 2, 2021, VanEck launched the Vectors Social Sentiment ETF, with the stock code 'BUZZ,' on NYSE Arca. The fund consists of popular stocks on social media. On the first day of trading, the fund received a record-breaking inflow of $280 million, making it one of the top 12 best debuts in history.

To date, VanEck has issued over 100 ETFs, managing assets totaling over $90 billion.

VanEck's successful history, image source: VanEck official website

Gold ETF and VanEck

Gold ETF is a financial product that tracks the price of gold, allowing investors to buy and sell gold shares through the exchange without actually holding physical gold. The emergence of gold ETFs has greatly simplified the process of investing in gold, dropping transaction costs and risks.

The first gold exchange trade product is the Central Fund of Canada, which is a closed-end fund established in 1961. The fund amended its articles of incorporation in 1983 to provide investors with products holding physical gold and silver.

In 1968, VanEck launched the first open-end gold stock mutual fund in the United States.

In 1971, President Nixon of the United States canceled the link between the dollar and the gold standard. VanEck's gold fund (now known as the VanEck International Investors Gold Fund) was the first of its kind, and with the price of gold soaring from $35 per ounce to $800, the fund became the best-performing fund in the industry.

Gold performance since 2000. Source: VanEck

Although John is passionate about gold, his son Jan van Eck realized that the company's overreliance on gold is a vulnerability. He shifted the company's focus and entered the ETF field first. Today, ETFs account for 90% of VanEck's business.

On March 28, 2003, the first gold ETF developed by ETF Securities was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. On November 18, 2004, State Street Corporation launched SPDR Gold Shares listed in the United States, and the fund's assets exceeded $1 billion within the first three trading days.

In 2006, VanEck launched its first gold ETF product, the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF, just two years after the first gold ETF in the United States. To this day, the average volume of the ETF is around 20 million US dollars, and the total net asset management is 13.2 billion US dollars.

The VanEck of the encryption world: applying for the first BTC futures ETF, the first SpotETH ETF, and the first Solana ETF

VanEck is an important player in the well-known BTC ETF and ETH ETF. Unlike BlackRock's high approval rate, VanEck has always been labeled as the "first application, bold trial and error". On August 11, 2017, VanEck submitted an S-1 application to launch the first BTC futures ETF, becoming the first issuer to apply for an ETF investing in BTC futures. Subsequently, VanEck tirelessly applied for the SpotBTC ETF.

However, in November 2021, the US SEC rejected the application due to concerns that potential fraud in the cryptocurrency market could spill over to regulated exchanges. The application was rejected three times from 2021 to March 2023. However, VanEck persisted and finally succeeded in listing the product after the approval of Spot BTC ETF in 2024.

Afterwards, VanEck became the first company to submit a SpotETH ETF application in 2021, almost three years before the SEC began engaging with issuances including BlackRock, Fidelity, and Ark Invest.

However, unlike companies like Fidelity and BlackRock, which only stick to BTC and ETH ETFs ( BlackRock's digital asset head Robert Mitchnick publicly stated that BlackRock believes customers 'have little interest' in Cryptocurrency outside of BTC and ETH ), VanEck has taken an extra step: applying for a Solana ETF.

At the end of June, VanEck submitted an application for a Spot Solana ETF to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States, becoming the first issuer to apply for a Solana ETF. In a post on platform X, Matthew Sigel, VanEck's director of digital asset research, stated, "The decentralized nature, high utility, and economic feasibility of SOL are consistent with the characteristics of other established digital assets, reinforcing our belief in the value of SOL as a commodity with utility for investors, developers, and entrepreneurs seeking alternatives to the dual Oligopoly application stores."

Coindesk stated, "VanEck is known for its pioneering position in the digital asset field."