On June 15, 2023, 2042 days have passed since Larry Fink, CEO of fund management giant BlackRock, angrily called Bitcoin a “money laundering index.”
Just yesterday, BlackRock’s iShares unit officially submitted documents to the U.S. SEC to form a spot Bitcoin ETF. According to the filing, the fund’s assets will be named the iShares Bitcoin Trust and will consist primarily of Bitcoin held on behalf of the trust by its custodian, Coinbase.
From disdain and suspicion to contact, and then to get involved, the attitude of one of the worlds largest private equity funds has undergone a huge change in just a few years. However, this change did not happen overnight, but had been planned for a long time. .
As early as the end of 2020, BlackRock issued a recruitment for a vice president of blockchain, and judging from the job description, applicants must have a good understanding of the inner workings of the blockchain, and one of the main responsibilities is to value digital assets. At the beginning of 2021, Larry Fink said in an interview that Bitcoin can be a store of wealth, but Bitcoin still has some problems. “The Bitcoin market is still small” and Bitcoin is untested and has huge volatility.
In the first half of 2021, BlackRock began to test the waters of investing in Bitcoin. BlackRock held $6.5 million in CME Bitcoin futures contracts at the start of ’21, people familiar with the matter said. According to published regulatory documents, the company held CME Bitcoin futures contracts worth $6,147,842.02 on the reporting date on January 31. The share held accounted for 0.03% of BlackRock’s huge global allocation fund, and the value-added part accounted for only 0.0014%. .
Crypto analyst Tyler Swope believes that BlackRock’s embrace of the cryptocurrency space signals a possible major change in the market. He mentioned the comments of BlackRock Chief Investment Officer Rick Rieder, who revealed that BlackRock has been investing in Bitcoin. Explore, and believe that Bitcoin has evolved enough to become an acceptable part of an investment portfolio.
Swope also noted that several BlackRock executives hold key positions in the Biden administration, including sustainable investing chief Brian Deese and senior investment adviser Wally Adeyemo, who have the ability to influence U.S. economic policy. Additionally, BlackRock is already deeply involved in the Bitcoin mining industry and aligns it with its corporate agenda. BlackRock also has a stake in Marathon Digital Holdings, the largest Bitcoin mining company in the United States, which allows it to discuss and promote sustainable Bitcoin mining.
However, BlackRock remains on the fence about cryptocurrencies at this time. In November 2021, Salim Ramji, BlackRock’s global head of iShares and index investing and a member of BlackRock’s global executive committee, said in an interview that the company currently has no plans to launch a cryptocurrency ETF. He said that due to the opaque regulatory framework and liquidity-related concerns, BlackRock will delay its plan to launch a cryptocurrency ETF. Of course, Ramji also affirmed the cryptocurrency, I personally think that cryptocurrencies such as stable coins, of course, There are also technologies like distributed ledger technology, which are disruptive technologies.”
It wasn’t until April 2022 that BlackRock launched its first blockchain-focused ETF—"The iShares Blockchain and Tech ETF (IBLC)". According to filings with the SEC, the ETF is designed to track participation in"Development, innovation and utilization of blockchain and cryptography technologies"company of.
Rumors about Bitcoin ETFs have spread as early as June 22. At that time, BlackRock’s head of global ETFs said that he “does not rule out the emergence of Bitcoin products in the future.” Previously, Salim Ramji, BlackRock’s global head of ETF and index investing, said in an interview that although major financial companies such as Fidelity have submitted their ETF applications, BlackRock still has no intention to launch its own Bitcoin products. Because companies want to meet expectations in terms of quality and regulatory compliance. In August, BlackRock launched a private trust service designed to provide U.S. institutional clients with spot Bitcoin risk exposure. This trust will become BlackRocks first direct exposure to Bitcoin prices. products and will be available exclusively to institutional customers in the United States.
Since then, BlackRock has launched two crypto-related ETFs, namely the iShares Metaverse UCITS ETF, which tracks the STOXX Global Metaverse Index and uses EconSight patented data analysis to identify market leaders, innovators and metaverse technologies. Professional companies in the field, involving digital markets, games, healthcare, manufacturing, software and hardware and other fields related to the Metaverse; and iShares Blockchain Technology UCITS ETF for European customers.
At this point, BlackRock has become more and more closely connected with the crypto world. Not only did they participate in Circle’s financing and became one of the largest creditors of Bitcoin miner Core Scientific, they also cooperated with Kraken, Coinbase, etc. to launch products, and even went bankrupt. also holds a “very small position” on FTX.
Just yesterday, people familiar with the matter revealed that BlackRock is about to submit an application for a Bitcoin ETF. They will use Coinbase Custody to host the ETF and use Coinbase’s spot market data for pricing. Then BlackRock announced the spot Bitcoin ETF. With the news of cryptocurrency ETF, how far can this financial giant in the traditional world extend its reach? let us wait and see.
