The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, is doubling down on bitcoin, laying the foundation for Central Banks to adopt the pioneer crypto.
Just a week after partnering with Coinbase, BlackRock – the asset manager which owns highly controversial ESG assets – announced its launch of a new private spot bitcoin trust for its US-based clientele.
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BlackRock Launches New Bitcoin Trust
This week, BlackRock announced its launch of a private spot bitcoin trust, offering clients direct exposure to the King cryptocurrency for the first time ever. The trust will track the performance of bitcoin.
The New York-based $10 trillion asset manager said that despite the market meltdown, it’s seeing “substantial interest” from its institutional clients, who wish to gain access to crypto markets through its platform.
BlackRock said that bitcoin is the leading crypto asset that its customers showed interest in.
“Bitcoin is the oldest, largest, and most liquid digital asset and is currently our clients’ primary subject of interest within the digital asset space,” BlackRock posited.
The firm has also been researching permissioned blockchains, stablecoins, tokenisation and crypto assets, which it believes could benefit its clients and capital markets more broadly. The BTC trust launch came just after the firm announced its “Alladin” clients would have access to crypto and prime brokerage through connectivity with Coinbase Prime.
Barry Silbert: Bitcoin Coming to Central Banks?
In the press release, BlackRock said it was motivated by non-profits like RMI and Energy Web, which are creating green energy programs for crypto. Given the company’s ESG holdings, the so-called ‘carbon footprint’ consideration is supposedly important to the asset manager.
Reacting to the BlackRock bitcoin trust news was the founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group Barry Silbert – the behemoth crypto conglomerate behind CoinDesk, Grayscale, and Foundry. Barry suggested that central banks around the world would end up adopting the King cryptocurrency because of the monumental move initiated by the world’s largest asset manager on the planet.
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