Summary VanEck Digital Transformation ETF (DAPP) is rated BUY for investors "seeking alpha" amid speculative growth & diversified crypto exposure and a crypto-friendly Trump 2.0 administration. DAPP has outperformed Bitcoin, S&P 500, and Nasdaq-100 over the past year, delivering +81% returns and benefiting from strong holdings like IREN, Coinbase, and Hut 8. The ETF is a "risk on" investment, with performance sensitive to macro economic events and Fed interest rate policy, but offers global diversification and access to leading digital asset companies. DAPP's 0.51% expense ratio is reasonable for a specialty fund, and it is well-positioned to capitalize on increasing global crypto adoption and current "risk-on" momentum. I advise investors to build a well-diversified portfolio on a foundation of a high-quality, low-cost S&P500 ETF and to over-weight the technology sector. I also advise them to use a top-down allocation approach into several investment categories - which might include the "Speculative Growth" category. In my own personal portfolio, this category holds investments I consider to have higher risk/reward potential. Currently, the only holding I have in this category is the Fidelity BitCoin ETF ( FBTC ). Today, I will review the VanEck Digital Transformation ETF ( DAPP ) - a diversified digital assets fund which I would also put into the "Speculative Growth" category because it has excellent potential to deliver market-beating gains in the current market environment. Indeed, after a tepid start since my first BUY-rated article on the fund back in December of 2024 (see DAPP: VanEck's Excellent ETF For BitCoin, Crypto Exchanges, And Blockchain Exposure ), the DAPP ETF has significantly out-performed both the S&P500 and Nasdaq-100 (as represented by the ( VOO ) and ( QQQ ) ETFs, respectively) and is +81% over the past year: Data by YCharts Investment Thesis The DAPP ETF is certainly a "risk-on" type investment (in the chart above, note the big sell-off in DAPP after Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff announcements in April) and certainly not for all investors. However, if you are like me and continually comb the market for excellent risk/reward opportunities, DAPP just might fit the bill. That's because the Trump 2.0 administration is clearly crypto- and digital-asset friendly and it is a fast growing emerging sector (see Once A Crypto Skeptic, Trump Is Now A Big Fan Of The Industry ). As that article points out: The Trump family also holds about a 60% stake in World Liberty Financial , a crypto project that provides yet another avenue where investors are buying in and enriching the president’s relatives. World Liberty has launched its own stablecoin, USD1. The project got a boost recently when World Liberty announced an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates would be using $2 billion worth of USD1 to purchase a stake in Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. In addition, Forbes reports that Trump is now one of America's biggest BitCoin investors. Trump's sons Don Jr. and Eric are also highly invested in crypto, including big stakes in the recently listed Nasdaq American BitCoin ( ABTC ). My point here is that after an arguably anti-crypto Biden Administration, the Trump 2.0 administration appears to be "all-in" on crypto. One highly visible consequence was passing of the " Genius Act " - which the WhiteHouse.gov Fact Sheet says " will pave the way for the United States to lead the global digital currency revolution. " That said, I am way too busy analyzing my primary investments in the technology sector to devote enough time & energy (and desire ...) to keep track of all the relatively fast developments and (very) volatile earnings reports of companies in the crypto sector. That being the case, a diversified crypto & digital assets fund like DAPP is a great way to gain exposure to the sector while only having to track a single equity investment while at the same time reducing the risks associated with making individual company selections. With that as background, let's take a fresh look at the DAPP ETF and see if it might have a place in your portfolio. Top-10 Holdings The top-10 holdings in the DAPP ETF (as of 10/24/2025) are shown below and came directly from the VanEck DAPP webpage where you can learn more detailed information on the fund: VanEck The #1 holding in the DAPP ETF with an 8% allocation is Iren Ltd ( IREN ). IREN owns & operates data-centers in Australia & Canada and is a BitCoin miner. IREN has gone from very little revenue in 2023 to over half-a-billion dollars in FY25 and is expected to rocket higher to over $1 billion in FY26 and over $2 billion in FY27: Seeking Alpha In August, IREN stock jumped 8%+ after its FY25 Q4 report delivered a huge beat in adjusted EBITDA ($121.9 million) and said it's approaching $1.25 billion in total annualized revenue. The stock is +580% over the past year. Coinbase Global ( COIN ) is the #4 holding with a 6.4% weight. Coinbase operates a global platform for crypto assets where consumers can open brokerage accounts that give them access to large pools of liquidity across the digital asset landscape. Coinbase also offers a suite of products for blockchain developers as well as a stable-coin payments system for businesses. In Q2 FY25, Coinbase blew away EPS estimates of $1.49 when it delivered a whopping $5.14/share. COIN stock is +69.5% over the past year. The #7 holding in the DAPP ETF with a 5.3% weight is Block ( XYZ ). Block operates two primary and highly visible consumer segments: Square & CashApp. Square offers commerce and point-of-sale ("POS") product for restaurants, retail, and online checkout, among other financial software & hardware solutions and products. CashApp operates the very popular peer-to-peer payment system of the same name as well as financial tools that support BitCoin as well as stock investments. The CashApp segment also offers Afterpay - a buy now, pay later platform as well as TIDAL, a platform for musicians and fans. Block stock is a relative laggard in the sector being up only 9.6% over the past year and down 50%+ over the past 5-years. Still, Block's forward P/E is an arguably rich 30.9x . Major BitCoin holder Strategy Inc ( MSTR ) is the #9 holding with a 5% weight. Strategy continues to buy-up more BitCoin with the latest purchase being an addition of 168 BitCoin during the Oct. 13-19 period at an average purchase price of $112,051 per coin (at pixel time, BTC-USD was trading at $115,474). The BitCoin treasury company's total BTC holdings is now 640,418 with an average purchase price of $74,010. At the pixel-price quoted above, I currently estimate MSTR's BitCoin holdings to be valued at ~$74 billion. That compares to MSTR's market-cap of $82.9 billion . MSTR stock is +22.6% over the past year. The top-10 holdings are rounded out by Hut 8 Corp. ( HUT ) with a 4.9% weight. HUT is a BitCoin miner and is also an investor in previously mentioned American BitCoin - the recent Nasdaq listing that the Trump brothers have large stakes in. After previously posting large losses, Hut 8 unexpectedly delivered a GAAP profit in Q2 on digital asset gains. At quarter's end, HUT held 10,667 BitCoin in reserve with a market value of $1.1 billion at June 30, 2025. HUT stock is +211% over the past year and it trades with a forward P/E=32.6x. As shown below, 25% of the DAAP portfolio is internationally diversified and provides somewhat of a hedge against a potential continuation of what YTD has been extreme weakness in the U.S. dollar ( -10% YTD ): VanEck Performance The DAPP ETF has only been around since April of 2021 and therefore there is no long-term performance track record. The fund's average annual total returns are shown below, and while the 1-year and 3-year average annual returns are very strong, note the life-of-fund returns are still negative, which demonstrates just how much the fund sold off after its original listing (and also just how very strong the bounce-back was): VanEck The chart below compares the total returns of the DAPP ETF versus the price of BitCoin, the FBTC ETF that I currently hold, and the broad market averages since the DAPP ETF began trading: Data by YCharts As you can see from the graphic, the DAPP ETF has far-n-away outperformed not only BitCoin, but also the S&P500 and Nasdaq-100. This is exactly what you should want from a "Speculative Growth" investment for which we are, literally, "seeking alpha". ETF Basics As with all my Seeking Alpha ETF articles, below I list a summary of some of the basic ETF metrics that most any investor would want to consider prior to potentially allocating some capital to the DAPP fund: Expense Ratio: 0.51% Total Net Assets: $396.3 million # of Holdings: 26 30-day SEC yield: 0% TTM P/E Ratio: 32.8x Price-to-Book Ratio: 3.49x As you can from the list, the DAPP ETF is relatively expensive (especially as compared to say the Vanguard S&P500 ETF ( VOO ) and its 0.03% fee) but not overly expensive for what I would describe as a specialty fund and one that has significant international exposure. Note that net assets have almost doubled since my last Seeking Alpha article on DAPP. Somewhat surprisingly, the DAPP portfolio's P/E ratio is not much of a premium as compared to the S&P500 ( 31.5x ) while the price-to-book ratio is actually a 38.7% discount to the S&P500's price-to-book ratio of 5.70x . Risks I would argue that the DAPP ETF is an extreme example of a "risk on" investment. While this is arguably exactly what an investor wants in a macro-environment in which it is widely expected that the Federal Reserve is going to cut interest rates two more times before the end of the year, I certainly would not recommend it for everyone - especially investors that don't pay attention to the market on a fairly regular basis. That's because "risk on" can turn to "risk off" in a New York second - be it Fed rate-cut disappointment on a high inflation rate print, more drama in the Trump/Xi tariff war, or real war developments in Ukraine and/or the Middle East. In that scenario, the DAPP ETF could sell-off in a hurry (just like it did after the "Liberation Day" disaster). That being the case, investors should expect to keep a close-eye on any investment within the "Speculative Growth" category of their portfolios. Upside risks include increasing global adoption of crypto, BitCoin, stable-coins, and de-fi in general. Summary & Conclusion For investors who want to make a higher risk/reward investment into crypto as compared to all the vanilla Bitcoin ETFs, I advise you to consider the diversified DAPP ETF, which I rate as a BUY in order to profit from the current "risk-on" market momentum and driven by arguably very pro-crypto pro- digital assets under Trump 2.0 and my expectations for a much (much!) more lenient regulatory environment.