VanEck Debuts Wealth Builder ETF with Bitcoin Exposure via Cayman Subsidiary

VanEck launched the Wealth Builder ETF, which trades on the NYSE under the WBMO ticker, on the day of its release. The actively managed product bundles the Wealth Builder model portfolios that advisers had used via third-party platforms into one vehicle any brokerage customer can purchase.

The asset manager, with roughly $244 billion under management, chooses the fund's holdings, determines their weightings and rebalances the portfolio as needed.

According to VanEck, the fund lets investors "gain exposure to a broad mix of investments across stocks, bonds, gold, and bitcoin with a single ETF purchase." The portfolio includes global equities, fixed income, gold and additional real assets.

The ETF's bitcoin exposure comes indirectly. WBMO does not directly own any bitcoin. Instead, a wholly owned Cayman Islands subsidiary holds certain investments and obtains digital asset exposure via exchange-traded products — funds that either hold bitcoin directly or track its price.

That Cayman subsidiary is typically limited to 25% of total assets at each quarter's close, though the cap applies to multiple asset classes. The fund's prospectus does not specify a particular bitcoin allocation target. Investors do not require a crypto wallet, seed phrase or exchange account to gain bitcoin exposure through WBMO. They also lack direct control over the bitcoin holdings.

JUST IN: $200 billion VanEck includes Bitcoin exposure in their new Wealth Builder ETF

"This fund brings Bitcoin to investors who want one simple diversified holding"

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) October 27, 2026

Details of VanEck's fund

WBMO carries a gross expense ratio of 0.33%. After a 0.07% fee waiver, the net expense ratio stands at 0.26%. The bitcoin-linked products held in the subsidiary each have their own separate fees.

The asset allocation also dampens volatility. When bitcoin rallies, WBMO only reflects a portion of that gain. During a downturn, holdings in bonds and gold are expected to absorb some of the losses, though not entirely.

VanEck cautioned in its announcement that digital asset exchange-traded products can experience extreme price swings and noted that some of these products are not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, depriving them of certain safeguards for investors.

VanEck's other cryptocurrency-focused fund, NODE, increased its bitcoin ETP allocation from roughly 7% at June's close to 16.8% at September's end. Unlike WBMO, NODE invests in blockchain firms, yet the increase demonstrates VanEck's growing use of crypto in its product lineup.

Earlier in the autumn, VanEck's head of digital assets research, Matthew Sigel, stated that the Bitcoin community had acknowledged the threats quantum computing could present to Bitcoin's cryptographic security.

“It’s a risk,” Sigel said at the time. “But the community has recognized the scope of the issue. There’s a lot of talent that’s now come together with a framework of how to upgrade the system…The upgrades don’t happen as fast because there’s no CEO who can tell the devs, ‘hey, do it now.’ There’s a governance process — it takes more time, it’s a little bit messier, but there are technological paths for quantum resistance, and I think you’ll see more of that over the next couple of years.”

Large firms such as Coinbase and Blockstream have already started working on quantum-resistant security measures in anticipation of future risks.

An initiative called the Bitcoin Security Consortium, which includes BlackRock, Fidelity Digital Assets and Block, was also established to finance open-source security projects, among them the BIP-360 proposal.