Avalanche Gets First US ETF As VanEck Debuts AVAX Fund

The first U.S. spot Avalanche (AVAX) exchange traded fund (ETF)—VAVX—from global asset manager and fund issuer VanEck began trading on the Nasdaq on Monday.

The fund offers investors exposure to spot AVAX token performance and staking rewards, all while expanding the pool of crypto ETFs available to U.S. investors.

“We see Avalanche as one of only a handful of smart contract platforms, alongside Ethereum and Solana, equipped to offer the network throughput (and in Avalanche’s case, customization) that institutions will demand as tokenization accelerates,” VanEck Director of Digital Assets Product Kyle DaCruz told Decrypt.

The fund will waive fees until it accrues $500 million in assets or on February 28, whichever comes first. Afterwards, the fund will maintain a 0.2% sponsorship fee. The asset manager said that it will work alongside the Avalanche team to help educate investors on the network moving forward. 

“Our first focus is on introductory resources designed for traditional investors and advisors,” said DaCruz. “The aim is to translate complex technical concepts, such as ‘time-to-finality,’ into a clear investment thesis and terminology while highlighting a balanced view of opportunities and risks.”

VAVX finished the trading down down more than 2% at a price of $24.06, despite the fact that AVAX has gained more than 3% in the last 24 hours to change hands at $11.71. The layer-1 network token has dropped around 69% in the last year, and is 92% off its 2021 all-time high of $144.96.

“The launch of VAVX is a meaningful step forward in institutional access to the Avalanche network,” Ava Labs VP of On-Chain Finance Morgan Krupetsky told Decrypt.

“More importantly, this milestone reflects growing recognition of Avalanche as a blockchain platform built for adoption at scale,” she added, “one that supports institutions, enterprises, and governments deploying real-world applications that drive revenue, efficiency, and operational impact.”

The fund’s public debut puts AVAX squarely alongside other popular crypto altcoins like XRP, Solana (SOL), and Dogecoin (DOGE), which all saw spot ETFs gain approval at the end of last year, in part due to the SEC’s approval of new generic listing rules. 

Since the approval of the spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in 2024, the funds have garnered nearly $136 billion in assets under management according to data from CoinGlass, granting traditional investors with spot exposure to crypto’s largest assets. However, amid President Trump’s recent tariff threats, the largest crypto ETFs shed more than $1.7 billion combined last week.

“Exchange-traded products are a familiar and scalable vehicle for institutions, and their availability helps reduce friction for allocators looking to gain exposure through traditional market infrastructure,” said Krupetsky.