VanEck CEO: Bitcoin Will Endure, But Many Token Ecosystems Will Disappear

Organized & Compiled by DeepChain TechFlow

Guest: Jan van Eck (CEO of VanEck)

Host: Wilfred Frost

Memory Is a Bubble, But Nvidia Is Protected – Jan Van Eck on the Semiconductor Surge

Podcast source: The Master Investor Podcast with Wilfred Frost

Broadcast date: May 27, 2026

This episode features VanEck CEO Jan van Eck, whose key insight is that Nvidia has evolved from a single GPU manufacturer into the "host" of AI infrastructure, with moats in software ecosystems, scale, and power efficiency; however, the surge in memory chip stocks resembles a bubble driven by temporary supply-demand imbalances.

The head of VanEck, an early advocate for Bitcoin ETFs managing approximately $225 billion in assets, distills the next decade’s key themes into three factors: AI computing infrastructure, India’s rise, and fiscal overleveraging by developed economies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

More strikingly, he called 2026 the "year of corporate control chains," arguing that Wall Street will adopt the benefits of blockchain, stablecoins, and programmable money, but most crypto projects and software will become irrelevant within five to ten years; Bitcoin, stablecoins, and blockchain will endure, while many token ecosystems will vanish.

AI, semiconductor, and memory chip stocks

• From an AI perspective, the issue is straightforward: demand for computing power is here, but supply is below. Semiconductors are clearly at the core of this structure.
• Nvidia is no longer just a GPU manufacturer—it’s more like the host of AI; the cyclical, highly competitive nature of a single chipmaker no longer defines it today.
• NVIDIA's advantage stems not only from its production scale but also from chips that deliver higher efficiency per dollar of electricity; with a forward earnings multiple of just over twenty times, I believe it remains a solid asset in the portfolio.
• The profit surge in memory chip stocks is not primarily due to selling more products, but rather due to price increases; this means companies using memory chips will begin seeking ways to reduce their usage.
• I don’t like to easily call tops, but I’m cautious about memory chip stocks because, from a medium- to long-term perspective, they don’t have as deep a competitive moat as Nvidia.

ETFs, Active Management, and Asset Allocation

• VanEck’s investment philosophy is to look back at today from the perspective of ten years hence: By 2036, which major themes will have truly transformed the world and financial markets?
• ETFs are a game of scale—the larger the assets, the better the ability to serve a broader client base. Many actively managed strategies, particularly private and hedge funds, may actually suffer from diseconomies of scale.
• Even though ETF tools themselves are passive, deciding which ETFs to own, how to allocate them, and when to add or reduce positions is fundamentally an active decision.

Macro debt, gold, and hard assets

• If the market truly loses confidence in the U.S. government’s ability to meet its obligations, I don’t know where to hide; even though gold is a medium- to long-term hedging tool, it could also be sold off in the short term.
• I believe gold is reemerging as the world's primary currency, because if not the U.S. dollar, I don't think China or India will become international reserve currencies.
• The government bond market is one of the strangest and most inefficient markets in the world; it can become locked into a certain mindset and disconnected from reality.
• The nuclear energy ETF grew from less than $20 million to $4.7 billion, driven by a dramatic policy shift; both major U.S. political parties and countries like Japan have reembraced nuclear energy.

Encryption, Stablecoins, and Corporate Control Chains

• I call 2026 the year of the "corporate control chain," where banks, trading firms, and financial institutions aim to adopt the best aspects of blockchain while still maintaining control over their own ecosystems.
• I believe we are going through a crypto winter, and it won’t turn around. Many projects and software will no longer be interesting or alive five to ten years from now.
• The concept of blockchain will remain, stablecoins will remain, Bitcoin will remain; but many other parts of the ecosystem, in my view, will disappear.
• The stablecoin bill gives tech companies the ability to compete with the banking system for the first time, but banks have previously survived competition from money market funds.

India and SpaceX IPO

• Demographic trends cannot be resisted; there is no reason why a country like India, which has consistently pursued pro-business reforms under Modi, should not grow at a faster pace.
• SpaceX is enormous, and as an ETF issuer, we are thrilled to see it enter the public market; the subsequent liquidity flowing into the economy will be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Wilfred Frost: Today’s guest is Jan van Eck, President and CEO of VanEck and its affiliated companies. VanEck is an asset management firm founded by his father and has become a major player in the ETF industry, with approximately $225 billion in assets under management. Jan frequently appears on podcasts and is known for his direct and clear perspectives, which is why we’re thrilled to have him here. Jan, welcome to the show.

Jan van Eck: Wilfred, it’s a pleasure to have you on the show for the first time.

Wilfred Frost: I’d like to start directly with an ETF. Fairly speaking, it has driven much of your performance over the past few years and is currently at the heart of today’s market—SMH, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (which tracks major global semiconductor companies). Its recent performance has been extraordinary. I understand it now has approximately $65 billion in AUM, correct?

Jan van Eck: It’s about that scale.

Wilfred Frost: It has become the primary entry point for investors seeking exposure to semiconductors. It has risen 58% this year and 135% over the past 12 months. Even more striking, it has delivered an annualized return of approximately 29% since its inception.

Jan van Eck: That’s crazy, right?

Wilfred Frost: It’s truly incredible. Achieving this with compounding is extremely difficult. You could retire right now.

Jan van Eck: Yes, you should stop now.

Wilfred Frost: But I believe you wouldn’t be here unless you believed that, so over the past year or so, SMH has grown to $65 billion—how much of that growth came from price performance versus capital inflows?

Jan van Eck: A large portion is price performance. I find it hard to imagine that capital inflows accounted for more than 10% to 20% over the past 12 months.

Wilfred Frost: That’s interesting. I expected the percentage of capital inflow to be higher. What do you think is driving it up? Maybe it’s a simple question—is it purely the AI theme?

Jan van Eck: Yes. VanEck’s investment philosophy is to view issues as much as possible from a broad, macro perspective. I call this the “10-year macro”—meaning, looking back from 2036, which themes will we say had the most profound impact on the world, and consequently on financial markets? This perspective aims to filter out much of the noise.

I believe at least three things will remain: AI, the rise of India, and excessive borrowing led by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. From an AI perspective, the logic is straightforward: demand for computing power is extremely high, while supply struggles to keep up. Semiconductors are clearly at the core.

If you look further down, you’ll reach Nvidia, the global leader in AI GPUs and accelerated computing. One reason our ETF has outperformed other semiconductor ETFs is that it focuses only on the top 25 stocks and allows a maximum position weight of 20%, meaning it is heavily weighted toward Nvidia.

Nvidia alone could easily warrant its own episode. Are we still comfortable with semiconductors and Nvidia today? My answer is yes. No one can guarantee that a company won’t lose its competitive moat, but I believe Nvidia will still be one of the leaders ten years from now. Part of the reason is that it has become the host platform for AI, not just the former maker of a single chip or GPU. That earlier business model was not only highly cyclical but also intensely competitive.

Nvidia currently possesses software advantages, cost advantages, economies of scale, and higher power efficiency—in other words, it delivers more efficient chips per dollar or pound of electricity. Its forward earnings multiple is only slightly above twenty times. Therefore, although Nvidia has not been the hottest stock in the SMH over the past nine months, I still consider it a very solid component of the portfolio.

Wilfred Frost: According to your recent disclosures, Nvidia accounts for approximately 17% of SMH, and TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest wafer foundry) about 9%. I’d like to delve into them later. You mentioned earlier that gaining significant exposure to Nvidia is important; but it’s also interesting that, at least this year—or as you said, over the past nine months—the performance hasn’t been driven solely by large companies like Nvidia. For several years, many semiconductor companies were left behind by the AI theme, only recently catching up.

Jan van Eck: Exactly so. The SMH methodology includes elements born from both thoughtful analysis and luck. When you select only the top 25 names, the reality over the past 15 to 20 years of this investment era has been that large-cap stocks have truly led the market. There are certainly over 100 semiconductor companies, and filtering out those at the bottom, operating in more intensely competitive spaces, effectively eliminates the drag.

Of course, this does not apply to all investment stages. But during this period, it indeed amplified the impact of these top performers.

Wilfred Frost: Over the short term, up 58% this year, the rally has clearly broadened significantly. Memory chip stocks have surged sharply. Can this momentum continue?

Jan van Eck: I suspect this performance cannot be sustained. We just saw historic gains in May, so I don’t think it will continue at this pace. But I also don’t believe the market pricing is necessarily irrational. Returning to a super-macro perspective, if demand is high and supply is low, the capital markets are essentially telling entrepreneurs and founders: come here, we need your capital, we’re willing to assign high valuations to your capital because we need to build AI compute centers. This isn’t surprising.

I believe this decade-long perspective works because humans naturally tend to look backward. When a major trend emerges—whether it’s the rise of a nation or the emergence of a transformative technology—we cannot hope to understand its scale of development by merely looking back at the past few quarters of corporate earnings or previous uses of the technology.

Of course, not all technological trends will deliver on their promises. There are many false trends and fake technologies in the world. But AI is clearly grabbing the global market by the neck and shaking it awake.

Wilfred Frost: Let me ask one more short-term question. The KOSPI (Korea Composite Stock Price Index) hit another all-time high today, rising threefold over the past 18 months—an astonishing move for a national index, largely driven by Samsung and SK Hynix, global leaders in memory chips. Last week, the Korean index surged 12% in a single day. Does this remind you of the opposite scenario—like the meme stock surge at the end of 2021, followed by a sharp correction in 2022? I know these memory chip stocks, especially these two companies, have extraordinary earnings expectations, so it’s different from meme stock mania. But are there any similarities that raise red flags for you?

Jan van Eck: Within the AI ecosystem, I would say there are indeed some bubbles. Looking back to the end of last year, the question was about the financial sustainability of the OpenAI ecosystem. Would Claude (Anthropic’s AI assistant) surpass it? Among the companies I refer to as part of the OpenAI ecosystem, Oracle (an enterprise software and cloud computing company) had leveraged itself by building computing infrastructure for OpenAI, and CoreWeave (an AI cloud computing company) was also involved. Both of them dropped by 50% at the time.

Even within the broader AI trend, you’ll find localized bubbles or company-specific bubbles. Returning to your question, I do believe that the storage segment represents a阶段性 moment. People are generally reluctant to call a top in such times, but I remain cautious about storage chip stocks, as, in the medium to long term, they don’t possess the deep enough competitive moat that I believe Nvidia has.

New entrants will emerge in this space. Currently, there is a genuine shortage, and this shortage has given them pricing power. Their main reason for soaring profits is not a surge in sales volume—due to capacity constraints—but rather their price increases. This also means that users of these storage companies will begin seeking ways to reduce their usage.

So I agree with your sentiment—it has a strong bubble feel. In our actively managed funds, we are reducing our exposure to the storage sector.

Wilfred Frost: Nvidia makes up about 17% of SMH, with TSMC as the second-largest, followed by U.S. giants like Intel, Broadcom, AMD, Micron, Texas Instruments, and Qualcomm, each around 6% or 7%. Does TSMC also possess a comparable moat to Nvidia’s? Although different in type, is its defensibility equally strong?

Jan van Eck: I think so. TSMC not only has the manufacturing capability but also the capital capacity to build extremely expensive chip fabrication facilities. I suspect one of the shared strengths of Nvidia and TSMC is that both collaborate extensively with a wide range of participants in the ecosystem, almost seeing all their customers. As a result, they can see where technology is headed and how customer needs will evolve. Most people would say that TSMC will still be there ten years from now—it will be a survivor.

Wilfred Frost: You mentioned earlier that Oracle and CoreWeave experienced significant drawdowns from their late October highs last year to the “Iran war low” in March—Oracle nearly halved, which is substantial given its market cap. I heard you say on another podcast that there’s no need to overly worry about a broader AI bubble because it has already burst once. The question is: how do you maintain confidence in re-entering the right companies at these moments, especially when many of the companies we’re discussing aren’t yet public, leaving investors to access them through proxy instruments?

Jan van Eck: This sounds like the response you’d get from an ETF issuer, but from a corporate perspective, diversification is certainly the more rational approach. In terms of timing, if you’re in such a trend, it’s better to buy on a pullback rather than chasing in right now. Earlier, we discussed the fund flows into SMH—I believe a significant portion of its assets come from investors who bought years ago and have simply let the appreciation unfold naturally. This is somewhat healthy, as there isn’t much speculative short-term money chasing it.

Of course, capital is flowing into memory chip stocks and will also gravitate toward the hottest areas within the ecosystem. However, overall, we still maintain an overweight position in semiconductors within our broad portfolio model—we're just beginning to consider taking some modest profits here.

Wilfred Frost: Let’s talk more broadly about VanEck. When I was preparing for this show, I realized that although the company was founded in the 1950s, you truly entered the ETF space in the early 2000s.

Jan van Eck: It was 2006. We’ve been in the ETF space for 20 years.

Wilfred Frost: I hadn’t realized that ETFs are now clearly the largest part of your business.

Jan van Eck: Yes, by far the largest. ETF assets should account for more than 95%. While we still have an active business, primarily focused on gold mining, resources, and emerging markets, which is also very important to us. I sit down with active fund managers to discuss these.

Wilfred Frost: We recently had Jeremy Grantham on, and listeners can go back and listen to that episode. He was one of the earliest supporters of ETFs and deeply appreciates the impact Vanguard’s founder, Jack Bogle, had on the industry. Bogle’s mission was to reward employees if they could lower costs for clients—something Vanguard pioneered about 50 years ago. When you were building your ETF business, was this also a core theme? In other words, does delivering value and reducing costs for clients ultimately reward the company in the long term?

Jan van Eck: This is certainly a game of scale. I believe that in the private equity and hedge fund sectors, active management may be a game where economies of scale don’t apply. If you have too much money, you can’t effectively manage an early-stage venture fund or a small-cap fund. These strategies all have capacity limits—you simply can’t manage too much capital.

In contrast to an ETF, it’s a game of scale. The larger the AUM, the more broadly we can serve clients. We don’t compete with Vanguard in the core of their client base; but in the specialized areas where we do compete, we strive to keep fees highly competitive.

The reason I do this podcast is to align with our clients through research sharing. In private or active strategies, fund managers can align interests with clients through co-investing; but with our many niche ETFs, it’s impossible to hold them all simultaneously. So, our way of aligning with clients is by sharing our research—clearly explaining what we like and don’t like at any given point in time. This is also why we produce quarterly outlooks. Sometimes we’re optimistic about many things; other times, we’re not.

Wilfred Frost: You’ve mentioned the term “active.” Many people think of ETFs as passive tools, believing they must either invest in passive ETFs or hand their money to a traditional active fund manager who builds a portfolio stock by stock. How quickly can you launch a new ETF, such as one based on a new theme? How do you adjust existing ETFs? Would you explicitly define yourselves as active ETFs?

Jan van Eck: There are two types of active decision-making in ETFs. The first is deciding which ETFs you own. There are many specialized ETFs like those from VanEck, as well as some broader products. For example, whether or not you hold semiconductor ETFs is itself an active decision. Even though the ETF instrument itself may be passive, decisions about weighting and timing of investments are highly active.

In VanEck’s view, this is nearly the most important decision. Our perspective is that asset allocation and asset class selection are extremely important for investors. Our history began with the first U.S. gold fund, and we believe gold has been a powerful diversification tool in certain periods. While I am not as perpetually bullish on gold as my father was, it is indeed an active decision.

The second question is whether there is a need for actively managed ETFs. This is more pronounced in the U.S. than in Europe. We do have some actively managed ETFs. Let me give you two examples. One is an investment-focused ETF targeting the cryptocurrency or digital assets space. After launching our Ethereum ETF, I began communicating with clients and found that many had no idea what Ethereum—the platform for smart contracts and decentralized applications—is, nor did they understand why it performs the way it does or what its risks are.

As asset managers, our job is to articulate both opportunities and risks. So I say, let’s shift gears and offer an actively managed fund in this space. Investors no longer need to track the volatility of Ethereum, the performance of a single Bitcoin miner, or the fluctuations of payment fintech companies like Revolut—let’s track the entire industry and actively adjust allocations. This is an actively managed ETF.

Another example is actively managed ETFs that allocate to real assets or commodities. If you don’t want to choose between gold and oil, or between oil and oil stocks, you can use these actively managed ETFs.

Wilfred Frost: What are the tickers for these two ETFs?

Jan van Eck: The digital asset selection ETF is NODE. My colleague Matthew Sigel is very active on X/Twitter—if you’d like to read his daily commentary on the stock pool, check it out. The physical asset allocation ETF is RAX.

Wilfred Frost: Just to emphasize to our listeners, Jan clearly has an interest in these ETFs, and this podcast does not constitute direct financial advice. Let’s briefly touch on the ETF industry again. I’d like to know your perspective on the risks that rising concentration in ETFs may pose to the broader market. This question is primarily focused on large S&P 500 ETFs, rather than the active or specialized ETFs you mentioned earlier. When bearish observers cite this as one of the major risks, do you think their concern is valid?

Jan van Eck: We may not have enough time to discuss all the market structure implications. I’ll highlight two areas of particular concern, mostly within the fixed income space. First is the illiquidity of the fixed income market. If we have a bond ETF, only 5% to 10% of the bonds in its portfolio may be actively traded on a daily basis. This means that behind the scenes, someone—such as a broker—must be making markets in these bonds.

During market crises, investors reduce risk, which can lead to decreased trading efficiency for these bond ETFs. Some might say they more accurately reflect prices—I might agree they’re more accurate, but regardless, their bid-ask spreads widen, trading costs rise, and prices may fall. My second concern isn’t related to the ETF industry itself, but rather my biggest worry about financial markets: the spending issues of some developed-market governments. If I focus solely on ETFs, my greatest concern is fixed income.

Wilfred Frost: Over the past week, except for the beginning of this week, we’ve indeed seen a significant rise in bond yields. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield has climbed above 4.6%, after previously hovering around 4.3% in relatively calm territory. Does this shift bring back memories of the biggest macro fear?

Jan van Eck: You can guess that I really love charts spanning a decade. I always say that any chart shorter than ten years is a "chart crime"—of course, assuming you have the data; if not, find a longer-term analogy.

Jan van Eck: The 30-year government bond yields in the UK and Japan reached multi-year highs last year, and this trend has continued this year. I believe the reasons vary slightly by country. In your case, the UK may be experiencing some political instability, or at least greater high-level uncertainty compared to the US.

In my view, the government bond market is one of the strangest and most inefficient markets in the world, as it often becomes locked into a certain mindset and disconnected from reality. For example, before the European financial crisis, Spanish and Greek bond yields were lower than German bond yields—this never made sense. Then, at some point, prices were suddenly and sharply reassessed.

So, what’s truly interesting and telling is that bond investors are demanding higher long-term yields from the UK and Japan. I’m also very concerned about the U.S., but timing in life is everything. I’m watching the U.S. 10-year yield closely—I’m usually one of the most worried—but I also know we’re currently in a phase where others aren’t yet concerned.

The U.S. 10-year yield has not yet truly broken out to multi-year highs; it remains within a trading range. But this is something I’m closely monitoring. For context, the U.S. budget deficit peaked at around 6.5% two years ago. Due to factors such as Trump-era tariff revenues, the deficit had been declining; I had predicted this year’s budget deficit would fall into the low 5% range, which is still high—ideally, it shouldn’t exceed 3%—but the trend is in the right direction.

If the U.S. spends $500 billion on this war in Iran, it would suddenly push the deficit back to around 6.5% or 6.9%. I don’t see how the market wouldn’t be concerned about this.

Wilfred Frost: Interestingly, over the past two weeks, we’ve also seen very strong correlation—even if the triggers were the UK or Japan, everyone moved in sync due to worsening debt dynamics. Even though the U.S. isn’t as vulnerable as the UK or Japan, if 10-year or 30-year yields continue to rise, the U.S. seems likely to be pulled along as well. Do you think this would directly negatively correlate with assets like SMH? Even if SMH bets on themes you long-term believe in, wouldn’t the P/E multiples of growth sectors still come under pressure?

Jan van Eck: One hundred percent. I haven’t discussed with enough clients what would happen if the market truly lost confidence in the U.S. government’s ability to meet its obligations. But I don’t think there’s anywhere to hide. Wilfred, I often say gold is a medium- to long-term hedge, but if everyone flees the financial markets, gold could also be sold off.

Therefore, I don’t see why semiconductors would be immune. In a way, you could say the tech sector isn’t as reliant on debt, so the direct connection isn’t strong. But if everyone is rushing for the exit, I don’t think anyone can run in the opposite direction.

Wilfred Frost: Let’s talk about opportunities. If we enter a more inflationary decade, this could also be a key reason why yields rise. Do you think gold may see short-term selling pressure but remain attractive over the medium to long term? Also, please comment on GDX (VanEck Gold Miners ETF). At today’s gold price levels, even if gold doesn’t rise further, aren’t these mining companies still making substantial profits?

Jan van Eck: Yes, their cash flow is very strong. For the past 15 years, gold mining companies have been enduring a nightmare. First, gold prices were low. Authorities like the Bank of England sold gold in the late 1990s at around $250 per ounce.

Wilfred Frost: Thank you, Gordon Brown.

Jan van Eck: Yes, thank you. During that era, gold was not a significant component of portfolios. Later, gold began to be reintegrated into portfolios, but gold mining companies carried too much debt and struggled to control production costs. Investors grew increasingly disappointed in these companies year after year, leading to continuously declining valuations or P/E ratios. I believe the bottom was reached around 2016. In fact, gold mining stocks fell by 90% from 2011 to 2016.

In 2011, people believed that after the financial crisis, the massive influx of government funds into the market would benefit gold—but it didn’t. As a result, gold mining companies faced significant headwinds, and their stock prices plummeted.

However, they have now rebuilt their balance sheets, borrowed less, and repaid a significant amount of debt, resulting in very strong cash flow. For me, gold represents a very long-term trend. Even if you don’t share my level of concern about U.S. government spending, you would likely still reduce your purchases of U.S. Treasuries slightly. Therefore, in my view, gold is reemerging as the world’s primary currency.

If not the U.S. dollar, I don’t believe it will be China or India. Both have some capital controls and do not aim to become international reserve currencies. Additionally, these countries culturally tend to purchase large amounts of gold. Therefore, I believe gold will re-emerge as the primary currency. This is a multi-year process. It may also remain range-bound for a while, given how much it rose last year.

Wilfred Frost: Do you think gold will be correlated with the S&P 500 in the short term but not in the long term?

Jan van Eck: Gold exhibits different characteristics at different times. Sometimes it trades against the dollar; other times, it trades against inflation concerns. But if you accept my argument that gold is a global currency, then many of the recent movements actually make sense. For example, last year, despite low inflation in the U.S., global demand for gold as an alternative currency remained strong. Therefore, what happens in the U.S. becomes less significant.

Similarly, if Gulf states in the Middle East suddenly lost their income and needed cash to pay bills, they would sell what they could—gold is a deep and liquid market. Therefore, it makes sense that gold was sold off after the Iran conflict began. This aligns with my view of global macro drivers.

Wilfred Frost: I’ve looked at your ETF list, and many of the products are tied to hard assets and inflation exposure. For example, the Nuclear and Uranium ETF, ticker NLR, has nearly $5 billion in assets; the rare earths and strategic metals ETF is around $3 billion; and OIH (oil services ETF) is about $2.5 billion—Larry McDonald has mentioned it multiple times on the show. Have you intentionally developed these ETFs in recent years, or have they simply existed all along and only recently gained market attention?

Jan van Eck: They’ve always been there. When we first entered the ETF business, we leveraged our strengths in global resources, gold, and emerging markets. Those were our first ETFs. At the time, there weren’t as many ETFs on the market, so these products were often first to market.

We thought people would want to trade oil services and also want to trade nuclear energy. The nuclear energy theme had been waiting a long time. I remember NLR was probably launched in our second or third year of ETFs, around 2007 or 2008. But it was so unpopular that just five years ago, this ETF had less than $20 million in assets.

Wilfred Frost: From less than $20 million to $4.7 billion in just five years.

Jan van Eck: Because the policy shift has been too drastic. I’ve rarely seen anything like this. It hasn’t been loudly debated by politicians, but in the U.S., the Biden administration has largely supported nuclear energy, and several key Democratic governors have also backed it. As a result, nuclear energy has become a bipartisan consensus in the U.S. Internationally, Japan and many countries that had previously moved away from nuclear power have reactivated their nuclear programs, and of course, China has consistently pushed forward. This is why capital has flowed in. Over the past few years, it has primarily been capital inflows driving this trend.

Wilfred Frost: I didn’t realize the scale had grown this much. Let’s talk about emerging markets. Is this an assessment of all emerging markets generally, or is it specifically focused on India?

Jan van Eck: Sometimes I say “10-year macro,” and it sounds futuristic or uncertain. But I actually believe that the further out you look, the more certain certain trends become—like demographics. You can’t fight demographics. No matter what happens now, you can generally predict what things will look like a decade from now, whether it’s population decline or other trends.

Under Prime Minister Modi’s leadership, India has implemented a wide range of pro-business reforms—and continues to do so. Even though these reforms have received little attention in the U.S., significant changes have been made in recent years, including reforms to the bankruptcy code, labor laws, and a series of deregulatory and pro-business initiatives. No country that has undertaken as many pro-business reforms as India has failed to achieve higher economic growth. Projections suggest that India’s economy could reach the scale of continental Europe within a decade.

For investors, the more important question is: Can you make money from it? GDP growth doesn’t necessarily translate into profit growth or stock market returns. Interestingly, decades ago, India also shifted toward a more pro-equity culture. When Infosys (an Indian IT services company) and some early tech firms went public, they generated substantial wealth. India appears to have developed a social consensus that being wealthy—even very wealthy—is acceptable. That’s why I combine these two factors, and it’s the foundation of my long-term macroeconomic bullishness on India.

Wilfred Frost: As you mentioned, India’s demographic structure is very attractive, with its working-age population still growing, unlike countries such as China. I’m also very interested in your other ETF—you previously discussed Nvidia and companies with wide moats, which is clearly an important concept for you. You also have a Wide Moat ETF.

Jan van Eck: If I asked you which company in the financial services industry has the most stock research analysts, you probably wouldn’t think of Morningstar. But that’s exactly the case. I don’t think they’re particularly good at promoting this, but they have indeed built up such a robust research capability.

Their stock research methodology is precisely what you referred to as the "moat." Given the intense market competition, it is extremely difficult for a company to sustain excess profits over the long term unless it is fortunate enough to possess a competitive moat. This moat can stem from technology, economies of scale, or other factors. Morningstar’s approach involves filtering all companies down to the small minority they believe possess a competitive moat. I estimate that only about 5% of companies fall into this category—I should calculate the exact figure.

Then, they use valuation formulas to forecast future earnings and include the cheapest stocks among companies with competitive moats in their ETFs.

Wilfred Frost: This ETF has grown to $11 billion in AUM. Is this steady growth, or did it surge recently?

Jan van Eck: Strictly speaking, it’s not fair to compare it to the S&P 500, but investors naturally do so. For many years, it not only outperformed the S&P on an annual basis but also in cumulative returns, which is when most of the AUM growth occurred. It’s remarkable that it achieved this again in 2023, given that 2023 was a rebound year following the tech stock decline in 2022.

This strategy has had some excellent years. Recently, it has fallen behind because it missed out on some of the explosive gains in semiconductors. As a result, it has lost a bit of assets over the past few years.

Wilfred Frost: Tell me about your current perspective on crypto. When did you feel the pull, or when did you believe the case for offering crypto ETFs became compelling? I’m also curious about adoption of these products—whether there are still many marginal first-time buyers entering the crypto market.

Jan van Eck: In 2017, we were the first ETF issuer to file an application for a Bitcoin ETF. The reason was simple: I viewed Bitcoin as a competitor to gold. At the time, Bitcoin was rising much faster than it is now. Some of our clients shared this view. So, we believed that, like platinum and silver in relation to gold, Bitcoin would serve as an alternative—not necessarily replacing gold, but potentially complementing it.

Fast-forward to today, I believe Wall Street has, over the past year or so, largely absorbed the best aspects of crypto: blockchain, decentralization, transparency, 24/7 operation, and money programmability. This is a bit technical.

Wilfred Frost: We like technology.

Jan van Eck: In 2026, I call it the year of the "corporate control chain." Institutions like Bank of New York, JPMorgan, and Cumberland Trading are attempting to create what I call a corporate control chain—absorbing the best aspects of existing blockchains while still maintaining control over the ecosystem.

They’ll think, “This still has to be the Wilfred chain, or some other chain I control,” because I want to keep my customers on my own network. That’s where we are now. Almost all financial companies in the U.S. are using stablecoins or some part of crypto and trying to capture an ecosystem. I don’t think many of them will succeed. But this is how technology adoption will evolve by 2026.

As for the rest of the cryptocurrency space, there will be relatively fewer winners. I believe we are going through a crypto winter—a prolonged period of industry decline and consolidation—and it won’t reverse. Many projects and software will no longer be interesting or even exist five to ten years from now.

The concept of blockchain will certainly persist, stablecoins will exist, and Bitcoin will exist, but many other parts of the ecosystem, in my view, will disappear.

Wilfred Frost: So, are Bitcoin and Ethereum—the two largest assets—still in the early innings, or have they moved into the middle or even later stages of their lifecycle? By the way, I really love your Bitcoin ETF ticker symbol: HODL—it made me smile.

Jan van Eck: Who knows? My view is that Bitcoin will eventually reach about half the market capitalization of gold. Since gold has also risen, Bitcoin’s target price remains several times its current level. I’ve also reminded many U.S. investors that they seem to have forgotten Bitcoin hit an all-time high last year, and this year is the fourth year of the halving cycle—every four years, Bitcoin experiences a significant downturn. So it’s not surprising that it’s declining this year; in fact, we essentially predicted it.

Wilfred Frost: You’re very candid. As the CEO of a financial company, how important do you think relevant legislation is? The U.S. has already taken two major legislative actions in this space—do they pose a significant threat to traditional banks, represent a major opportunity for companies like yours, or have only marginal impact?

Jan van Eck: I think it’s a marginal impact. Every year, we design a tie theme; this year, in addition to commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we highlighted three of the most important events in U.S. financial history: Alexander Hamilton (the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury), FDR (President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who championed the New Deal and reshaped the banking system), and last year’s stablecoin bill.

The stablecoin bill is important because it gives technology companies the ability to compete with the banking system for the first time. Otherwise, our financial lives have always started with a bank account—you have no financial life without a bank account; everything flows through it. Now, tech giants can compete with banks.

But banks have also faced competition in the past. In the late 1970s, money market funds offered higher interest rates than banks could, causing banks to lose a significant amount of money. Yet banks certainly survived. Their customer base is sticky, and I don’t believe this stickiness will disappear.

Wilfred Frost: Before we wrap up, I have a few more questions. One is about the short-term outlook. Several major IPOs are coming up in the coming months, with SpaceX being the most anticipated in the near term. There are some nuances in this process that people may not yet realize: how quickly insider selling will be permitted, and how soon it will be included in indices, particularly the S&P 500. This could trigger automatic buying pressure, which isn’t typical in traditional cases. For you, are these red flags, or at least amber lights? Or do you find this reasonable?

Jan van Eck: I’m not dogmatic about this. SpaceX is so large that, as an ETF issuer, we’re thrilled to see it enter the public market. I think the steps it’s taking make sense. Initially, only a very small portion—around 3% to 4%—is publicly traded. Typically, if a company has such a small float, it wouldn’t qualify for index inclusion. Therefore, the shares must be released gradually over time.

As you said, the scale of funds here is absolutely staggering. You're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in cumulative terms. For comparison, our tariff revenue last year was about $300 billion. So it's like wave after wave of liquidity surging through the economy. In the short term, I believe they will have a positive impact on economic growth and will be absorbed by the market.

One argument for why more companies don’t go public is that active fund managers can buy IPOs within active funds, but ETFs cannot. I don’t fully accept this claim, but it is a reasonable argument—that companies are less likely to IPO because they can’t enter indices.

I believe all assumptions are worth reevaluating. When you're dealing with a large, established company like this, it's not a startup with no revenue trading at a trillion-dollar valuation—it's a highly mature company entering these indices.

Wilfred Frost: This is going to be incredible. The roadshows and interviews with Elon and others on CNBC will be well worth watching. I think there may still be some major AI companies going public soon. The next few months are going to be fascinating, and I’m eager to see how it unfolds. Jan, to wrap up, we ask every guest one simple question: What’s the most important investment advice you’d give to our listeners?

Jan van Eck: Take a macro, big-picture perspective. Since its founding by my father in 1955, VanEck has brought in the perspective developed by Dutch and British investors four to five centuries ago: assessing political risk, evaluating whether a country is business-friendly and likely to reward equity and participation in financial markets, and then building discussions around asset classes.

As China rises, how much allocation should you give it? As India rises today, how much allocation should you give it? Should you simply stick to historical weightings, or might you want to hold more? I hope everyone has participated in AI trading (AI-themed investing). What about gold? Are you invested in gold? Should you be? Why? These are big questions to ask from a long-term perspective.

We always say we’re not the only source of knowledge. Discussions like this are valuable and require engaging with others in the market to test your assumptions.

Wilfred Frost: I really love that answer. And praising the early financial wisdom of the British—well, that’s right up my alley. Jan van Eck, thank you for joining The Master Investor Podcast.

Jan van Eck: Thank you, Wilfred.