VanEck Launches Avalanche Ecosystem Fund — Is an AVAX Rally Imminent?

• The VanEck fund focuses on venture-backed Web3 projects across sectors like gaming, financial services, payments, and AI, with a specific emphasis on Avalanche-based initiatives.
• Recent institutional developments, including Solv Protocol’s Bitcoin token and Avalanche’s subnet capabilities, highlight its growing appeal among enterprises.

Crypto asset manager VanEck has recently unveiled a plan to launch a private digital assets fund in June, targeting Web3 projects built on the Avalanche blockchain network. The asset manager launched a PurposeBuilt Fund, an exclusive offering for accredited investors, focused on liquid tokens and venture-backed projects across key Web3 sectors such as gaming, financial services, payments, and artificial intelligence.

Furthermore, the fund will deploy idle capital in Avalanche (AVAX) real-world asset (RWA) products, which include tokenized money market fund, as reported by VanEck. The team behind VanEck’s Digital Assets Alpha Fund (DAAF), which currently overseas over $100 million in assets under management, will be managing the fund.

In a statement to CoinTelegraph, Pranav Kanade, portfolio manager for DAAF, said: “The next wave of value in crypto will come from real businesses, not more infrastructure”.

Avalanche’s Growing Dominance in RWA Ecosystem

The Avalanche blockchain is emerging as an ideal platform for launching real-world assets (RWAs) along with other institutional-grade crypto projects. Furthermore, Avalanche’s interconnected subnet architecture allows institutions to operate Ethereum-style smart contracts within a controlled environment. On May 16, Solv Protocol introduced a yield-generating Bitcoin token on the Avalanche blockchain, aimed at institutional investors, as highlighted in our last news story.

According to DefiLlama data, as of May 21, Avalanche boasts approximately $1.5 billion in total value locked (TVL). Commenting on this recent growth, John Nahas, chief business officer at Ava Labs, said, “We’re seeing a shift away from speculative hype toward real utility and sustainable token economies.”

As a result, the AVAX price is once again showing strength with 5% upside in the last 24 hours, moving to $25.15, with its market cap surging to $10.59 billion. Furthermore, the daily trading volume has also surged by 18% to $718 million showing strong bullish sentiment. As per the Coinglass data, the AVAX futures open interest is also up 11% to nearly $600 million. Market analysts predict an AVAX price rally to $30, as reported previously.

Grayscale, a leading digital asset management firm, has submitted an application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the launch of an Avalanche spot exchange-traded fund (ETF). If approved, the ETF will be listed and traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange, as mentioned in our earlier report.

FIFA Chooses Avalanche For Blockchain Project

FIFA, the global governing body for football, has unveiled plans to deploy a dedicated layer-1 blockchain built on Avalanche’s network. Known as the FIFA Blockchain, this Avalanche-based L1 leverages Avalanche’s customizable technology, previously referred to as a subnet.

This initiative aligns with Avalanche’s recent Avalanche9000 upgrade, designed to attract developers and support the creation of tailored L1 blockchains. Speaking on the development, John Nahas, chief business officer at Ava Labs said:

Avalanche is designed for enterprises and organizations looking to build custom, high-performance blockchain solutions. FIFA’s decision to launch its L1 on Avalanche is a testament to our technology’s ability to support global-scale applications with speed, flexibility, and security.

This isn’t FIFA’s first venture into blockchain technology. In 2022, it launched a non-fungible token (NFT) collection on the Algorand blockchain ahead of the Qatar World Cup. Earlier this year, FIFA hinted at this shift, revealing plans to migrate its collection to an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible blockchain while deepening its commitment to Web3 innovations.