Global investment manager VanEck announced Friday morning it will donate 5% of its profits from its spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF ) for at least a decade, if approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to Brink, a non-profit organization that supports Bitcoin core developers.
VanEck is one of more than a dozen financial heavyweights, including BlackRock, Fidelity, and Franklin Templeton, waiting for the SEC to approve a spot Bitcoin ETF, a decision that is expected in the coming days.
VanEck already made an initial $10,000 donation to Brink, according to its post on X, formerly Twitter. “We’re not Bitcoin tourists at VanEck. We’re in it for the long haul,” Van Eck said. Brink’s “tireless dedication to decentralization and innovation is the cornerstone of the Bitcoin ecosystem, and we’re here to support it.”
VanEck’s move to support core blockchain developers is not its first. Last October, the prospective Bitcoin ETF provider announced it would donate 10% of its profits from its Ethereum Futures ETF for at least 10 years to Protocol Guild, “a collective of 152 Ethereum core protocol contributors,” as declared on the Guild’s X profile.
VanEck, founded in 1955, commanded a whopping $76.4 billion in assets under management as of Sept. 30, 2023, according to its website. By comparison, the entire decentralized finance ecosystem has a total of $52.6 billion in total value locked, data from DefiLlama shows.
Brink, founded in 2020, aims to strengthen the Bitcoin protocol through research and support the developer community of the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization through funding, educating and mentoring, according to its homepage.
