Markets
The European ETF VanEck Crypto and Blockchain Innovators
Not many people know it, but a cryptocurrency ETF called VanEck Crypto and Blockchain Innovators UCITS ETF has also landed on European stock exchanges some time ago, whose performance differs significantly from that of the cryptocurrency markets.
It is an ETF that does not track the price performance of a cryptocurrency, but supports companies around the world that are using blockchain to transform finance and other industries.
The VanEck Crypto and Blockchain Innovators ETF on the stock market
This ETF it is available on four different European stock exchanges: London Stock Exchange (LSE), Deutsche Börse Xetra, SIX Stock Exchange in Zurich and the Italian Stock Exchange in Milan.
It is present under the ticker DAGB on all four exchanges, but the one where it develops the highest volumes is the London Stock Exchange, in particular the sterling trading pair.
It is an ETF that has an index as its underlying, MVIS Global Digital Assets Equity (MVDAPP).
This index tracks the performance of the largest and most liquid companies in the digital asset sector.
This is a modified market capitalization-weighted index and includes only companies that generate at least 50% of their revenues from digital asset services and products, such as exchanges, payment gateways, mining operators, software services, equipment, digital asset technologies and infrastructure. .
Among the companies included in the index there are, for example, MicroStrategy and Coinbase, but in reality the index covers at least 90% of the investable universe in this sector.
Precisely for this reason it is an index whose volatility is not as high as individual volatility cryptocurrenciesand ETFs on a single asset that replicate its price.
The performance of the DAGB on the stock market
Taking the price in dollars on the London Stock Exchange of the VanEck Crypto and Blockchain Innovators UCITS ETF as a reference, we discover that a disappointing 2022 was not followed by an equally brilliant 2023.
The ETF landed on the London Stock Exchange in mid-2021, in full bullrun, at an initial price of around 19 dollars. At that time, the price of one Bitcoin it was about $58,000.
During 2021, thanks to the continuation of the speculative bubble until November, the DAGB rose above $23, which still remains the all-time high.
Already at the end of November, however, it had returned to the starting price, and from December a long bear market began, which only ended in December of the following year at the $1.8 level. At that point, from the highs, it had lost as much as 92%.
It’s worth noting that Bitcoin in the same period it had lost less than 75% from the highs, so in the bear market DAGB performed much worse than BTC.
During 2023, however, it had recovered somewhat, reaching almost $9 at the end of the year. At that point it was around -60% from the highs, while Bitcoin had returned to -40% from the highs. Therefore, DAGB’s recovery in 2023 was not greater than that of Bitcoin.
2024
The problem was 2024.
The price of Bitcoin started the year around $45,000, and has now risen to $70,000.
Ethereum also performed well, with its price rising from $2,300 to $3,800.
Instead, the current price of DAGB is $7.2, lower than the 2023 annual peak.
The main problem occurred in January, when it fell below $5 as the cryptocurrency market underwent a slight correction.
Furthermore, while the cryptocurrency market performed very well in February and March, DAGB barely managed to briefly return to $8.50.
So in 2021 the VanEck Crypto and Blockchain Innovators ETF performed very well on the stock market, but in 2022 it performed very disappointingly, even worse than BTC and ETH.
By 2023 it had recovered somewhat, although no more than Bitcoin and Ethereum, while in 2024 it actually did not grow.
It is possible that single-asset crypto ETFs have diverted attention from traditional markets towards these indexed ETFs, in addition to the fact that thanks to the spot ETFs on Bitcoin and Ethereum, it is possible that the markets have preferred the latter to crypto companies.
Until it was possible to take a position directly on the price of Bitcoin on American stock exchanges, investors chose to take a position on companies considered “proxies”, such as MicroStrategy or Coinbase, but starting from January 2024 it became impossible to take a position directly on American stock exchanges on the price trend of BTC thanks to the new ETFs.
Therefore, products created years ago, when the market was different, like the needs of investors, are losing a bit of appeal in this 2020.