- VanEck BNB ETF (VBNB) filed an SEC 8-K on September 29, 2026 disclosing an amendment to its custody agreement with BitGo Bank & Trust
- The amendment designates Figment as the validator responsible for the trust’s BNB staking activities and sets a 4% staking-assets validator fee
- Only Schedule A of the custody agreement was amended and restated; the remaining terms of the agreement between VanEck Digital Assets and BitGo were unchanged
VanEck Digital Assets, LLC, sponsor of the VanEck BNB ETF, disclosed in a Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 29, 2026 at 4:50 p.m. ET that it has amended its custody agreement with BitGo Bank & Trust, National Association, on behalf of the fund, trading under the ticker VBNB.
According to the filing, “Schedule A to the Second Custody Agreement was amended and restated to identify Figment as the validator with respect to the Trust’s BNB staking activities and to provide for a 4% staking assets validator fee.” BitGo continues to serve as the fund’s custodian, while Figment, a staking infrastructure provider, is now named as the entity that will actually validate and stake the BNB the fund holds on the underlying blockchain.
The original custody agreement between VanEck Digital Assets and BitGo dates to August 5, 2026, and the amendment disclosed in this filing is dated September 25, 2026. The 8-K specifies that only Schedule A, covering the staking validator designation and fee, was modified; the remaining provisions of the broader custody agreement were left unchanged.
Naming a dedicated staking validator and disclosing the associated fee is a structural detail that matters for how a staking-enabled ETF actually generates yield for its shareholders: the validator fee is effectively a cost the fund pays for having its BNB staked and put to work, and that fee reduces the net staking reward that flows through to investors. Filing the arrangement as a formal 8-K amendment, rather than describing it only in marketing materials, gives investors and analysts a documented, auditable record of exactly which entity is validating the fund’s holdings and what it costs.
The filing is a routine but concrete example of the operational infrastructure that sits underneath the growing wave of staking-enabled crypto ETFs now trading in the U.S. market. As more issuers launch funds that stake proof-of-stake assets like BNB, Solana, and NEAR on behalf of shareholders, the custodians and validators named in agreements like this one are becoming a meaningful part of the due-diligence picture for investors trying to understand exactly how a fund’s staking yield is generated and who is responsible for the underlying validator infrastructure.
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