SEC Filing Document

Company: VanEck BNB ETF
Ticker: 
CIK: 2066824
Filing Type: S-1/A
Document Type: S-1/A
Date Filed: 2025-10-30
Accession Number: 0001628280-25-047581
Exchange: 
SIC Code: 6221
SIC Description: Commodity Contracts Brokers & Dealers
URL: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2066824/000162828025047581/vaneckbnbs-1a1.htm

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In January 2025, the SEC launched a Crypto Task Force dedicated to developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for digital assets led by Commissioner Hester Peirce. Subsequently, Commissioner Peirce announced a list of specific priorities to further that initiative, which included pursuing final rules related to a digital asset's security status, a revised path to registered offerings and listings for digital asset-based investment vehicles, and clarity regarding digital asset custody, lending and staking. These events have also led to significant negative publicity around digital asset market participants including DCG, Genesis and DCG's other affiliated entities. This publicity could negatively impact the reputation of the Sponsor and have an adverse effect on the trading price and/or the value of the Shares. Moreover, sales of a significant number of Shares of the Trust as a result of these events could have a negative impact on the trading price of the Shares.

Digital asset markets have also been negatively impacted by the failure of entities perceived to be integral to the digital asset ecosystem. For example, in March 2023, state banking regulators placed Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank into FDIC receiverships. Also, in March 2023, Silvergate Bank announced plans to wind down and liquidate its operations. Because these banks were perceived to be the banks most open to providing services for the digital asset ecosystem in the United States, their failures may impact the willingness of banks (based on regulatory pressure or otherwise) to provide banking services to digital asset market participants. In addition, because these banks were perceived to be the banks most open to providing services for the digital asset ecosystem, their failure has caused a number of companies that provide digital asset-related services to be unable to find banks that are willing to provide them with such banking services. The inability to access banking services could negatively impact digital asset market participants and therefore the value of digital assets, including BNB, and thus the Shares. In addition, although these events did not have an impact directly on the Trust or the Sponsor when these bank failures occurred, it is possible that a future closing of a bank with which the Trust or the Sponsor has a financial relationship could subject the Trust or the Sponsor to adverse conditions and pose challenges in finding an alternative suitable bank to provide the Trust or the Sponsor with bank accounts and banking services. Events such as these that impact the wider digital asset ecosystem are continuing to develop and change at a rapid pace and it is not possible to predict at this time all of the risks that they may pose to the Sponsor, the Trust, their affiliates and/or the Trust's third-party service providers, or on the digital asset industry as a whole.

Continued disruption and instability in the digital asset markets as these events develop, including declines in the trading prices and liquidity of BNB, or the failure of service providers to the Trust, could have a material adverse effect on the value of the Shares and the Shares could lose all or substantially all of their value.

The Value Of The Shares Relates Directly To The Value Of BNB, The Value Of Which May Be Highly Volatile And Subject To Fluctuations Due To A Number Of Factors.

The value of the Shares relates directly to the value of the BNB held by the Trust and fluctuations in the price of BNB could adversely affect the value of the Shares. The market price of BNB may be highly volatile, and subject to a number of factors, including:

•an increase in the global BNB supply or a decrease in global BNB demand;

•market conditions of, and overall sentiment towards, the digital assets and blockchain technology industry;

•trading activity on digital asset trading platforms, which, in many cases, are largely unregulated or may be subject to manipulation;

•the adoption of BNB as a medium of exchange, store-of-value or other consumptive asset and the maintenance and development of the open-source software protocol of the BNB Chain, and their ability to meet user demands;

•manipulative trading activity on digital asset exchanges, which, in many cases, are largely unregulated;

•the needs of decentralized applications, smart contracts, their users, and users of the BNB Chain generally for BNB to pay gas fees to execute transactions;

•forks in the BNB Chain, particularly where changes to the BNB Chain source code are either not well-received by key constituencies within the BNB community or are not successfully executed or implemented and fail to achieve the functionality such changes were intended to bring about;

•governmental or regulatory actions by, or investigations or litigation in, countries around the world targeting well-known decentralized applications or smart contracts that are built on the BNB Chain, or other developments or problems, and associated publicity, involving or affecting such decentralized applications or smart contracts;

•Increased competition from other forms of digital assets or payment services, including digital currencies constituting legal tender that may be issued in the future by central banks, or digital assets meant to serve as a medium of exchange by major private companies or other institutions;

•increased competition from other blockchain networks combining smart contracts, programmable scripting languages, and an associated runtime environment, with blockchain-based recordkeeping, particularly where such other blockchain networks are able to offer users access to a larger consumer user base, greater efficiency, reliability, or processing speed, or more economical transaction processing fees than the BNB Chain;

•investors' expectations with respect to interest rates, the rates of inflation of fiat currencies or BNB, and digital asset exchange rates;

•consumer preferences and perceptions of BNB specifically and digital assets generally, the BNB Chain relative to competing blockchain protocols, and BNB relative to competing digital assets;

•negative events, publicity, and social media coverage relating to the digital assets and blockchain technology industry;

•fiat currency withdrawal and deposit policies on digital asset trading platforms;

•the liquidity of digital asset markets and any increase or decrease in trading volume or market making on digital asset markets;

•business failures, bankruptcies, hacking, fraud, crime, government investigations, or other negative developments affecting digital asset businesses, including digital asset trading platforms, or banks or other financial institutions and service providers which provide services to the digital assets industry;

•the use of leverage in digital asset markets, including the unwinding of positions, "margin calls", collateral liquidations and similar events;

•investment and trading activities of large or active consumer and institutional users, speculators, miners, and investors in BNB;

•a "short squeeze" resulting from speculation on the price of BNB, if aggregate short exposure exceeds the number of shares available for purchase;

•an active derivatives market for BNB or for digital assets generally;

•monetary policies of governments, legislation or regulation, tariffs, trade restrictions, currency devaluations and revaluations and regulatory measures or enforcement actions, if any, that restrict the use of BNB as a form of payment or the purchase of BNB on the digital asset markets;

•global or regional political, economic or financial conditions, events and situations, such as the novel coronavirus outbreak;

•fees associated with processing a BNB transaction and the speed at which BNB transactions are settled;

•the maintenance, troubleshooting, and development of (or lack thereof) the BNB Chain including by validators and developers worldwide;

•the ability for the BNB Chain to attract and retain validators to secure and confirm transactions accurately and efficiently;

•ongoing technological viability and security of the BNB Chain and BNB transactions, including vulnerabilities against hacks and scalability;

•financial strength of market participants;

•the availability and cost of funding and capital;

•the liquidity and credit risk of digital asset trading platforms;

•interruptions in service from or closures or failures of major digital asset trading platforms or their banking partners, or outages or system failures affecting the BNB Chain;

•decreased confidence in digital assets and digital assets trading platforms;

•poor risk management or fraud by entities in the digital assets ecosystem;

•increased competition from other forms of digital assets or payment services; and

•the Trust's own acquisitions or dispositions of BNB, since there is no limit on the number of BNB that the Trust may acquire.

Although returns from investing in BNB have at times diverged from those associated with other asset classes to a greater or lesser extent, there can be no assurance that there will be any such divergence in the future, either generally or with respect to any particular asset class, or that price movements will not be correlated. In addition, there is no assurance that BNB will maintain its value in the long, intermediate, short, or any other term. In the event that the price of BNB declines, the Sponsor expects the value of the Shares to decline proportionately.

The value of the Shares of the Trust are represented by the MarketVectorTM [     ] that may also be subject to momentum pricing due to speculation regarding future appreciation in value of BNB, leading to greater volatility