TechFlow reported on October 30 that U.S. financial lawyer Scott Johnsson posted on X, stating that VanEck's updated Bitcoin spot ETF prospectus contains wording about seed funds similar to BlackRock's. Given both are represented by the same lawyers at law firm Cleary Gottlieb, this may not be surprising. However, unlike BlackRock iShares, which uses cash as seed capital, VanEck proposes using Bitcoin as seed capital.
Previously, on October 27, VanEck submitted a revised filing to the U.S. SEC for its Bitcoin spot ETF application, "VanEck Bitcoin Trust."
On October 24, U.S. financial lawyer Scott Johnsson found, after analyzing BlackRock’s S-1 amendment filing, that BlackRock had obtained a CUSIP number prepared for its Bitcoin spot ETF. CUSIP stands for Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures and serves as a uniform identification code for securities in the United States.
The documents indicate that BlackRock is preparing Seed Capital for its Bitcoin spot ETF. Seed Capital refers to the underlying assets purchased by the issuer at the launch of a new ETF to meet future demand for the product.
Specifically, when launching a new ETF, there must be at least 100,000 shares outstanding. Therefore, ETFs typically have Seed Capital of at least $1 million, often exceeding $2.5 million.
