VanEck will rebrand its existing Gaming ETF (BJK) as the VanEck Degen Economy ETF on April 8, 2026, shifting the fund’s focus from traditional gaming stocks to companies tied to digital-first consumer and trading activities. The move converts an ETF with roughly $399.3 million in net assets into a broader vehicle aimed at sectors described as the “degen” economy, formalizing a strategy to capture internet-native trading and engagement behaviors within a regulated product.
Index design and targeted “degen” sectors
The new fund will follow the MarketVector Degen Economy Index and target companies whose revenue is at least 50% derived from specified digital sectors. Those sectors include digital brokerage and crypto exchanges grouped as “Millennial Finance,” gig-economy platforms, online forums, and expanded digital gambling, betting and iGaming activities, all tied to the high-risk, high-reward culture associated with online “degen” communities.
Inclusion criteria combine thematic focus with liquidity and size screens, requiring a minimum market capitalization of $150 million, a three-month average daily trading volume of at least $1 million, and a minimum monthly trading volume of 250,000 shares over the prior six months. VanEck’s methodology is presented as an attempt to balance exposure to rapidly growing digital subindustries with tradability standards that exclude the smallest and most ephemeral issuers, aligned with growth expectations that include a cited 53.7% compound annual growth rate through 2030 for the broader addressable market.
Commentary around the launch highlights the cultural and branding pivot as much as the portfolio construction. Jeffrey Park of Morningstar Research Services is cited on the significance of explicitly using “Degen” in the fund’s name, while Tyler Warner’s observation that “Wall Street is no longer dancing around ‘degen’ culture. They’re embracing it” captures the cultural shift that the product is designed to monetize.
The offering converts an internet subculture and trading narrative into a regulated equity product but concentrates exposure in industries highly sensitive to sentiment and regulation. The fund’s target sectors—crypto exchanges, digital betting, gig platforms and related consumer apps—are described as historically volatile, vulnerable to policy crackdowns and dependent on discretionary spending that typically shrinks in economic downturns.
VanEck’s index screens mitigate some execution risk by excluding tiny or illiquid names, yet the underlying exposure remains tilted toward businesses characterized by high churn and rapid technological change. Proponents argue that the ETF offers institutional-grade access to an emerging, mobile-first consumer cohort and the firms that monetize its behavior, while critics warn that packaging “degen” behavior into an investment product risks normalizing exposure to structurally unstable business models.
For traders, treasuries and institutional allocators, the fund is presented as a concentrated way to bet on the intersection of on-chain markets, digital gambling and gig commerce while inheriting their volatility and regulatory sensitivity. VanEck’s rebrand thus formalizes a bridge between mainstream asset management and internet-native trading culture, with April 8, 2026 flagged as the date on which investors can verify the updated filings and prospectus details before allocating capital.
