Investment company BlackRock will not offer its clients bitcoin-ETF until it sees that the crypto industry is mature enough and has become legitimate. Such a statement has been made by the company's CEO Larry Fink at the New York Times Dealbook Conference.
“I wouldn't say never, when it's [the industry] legitimate, yes,” said Larry Fink, answering the question of whether BlackRock is considering launching such a financial instrument.
He explained that the crypto industry needed to enlist the support of the government. But at the same time, no government will embrace such assets until they know that “money's going for tax evasion and all of these other issues.”
“I do see one day where we could have electronic trading for a currency that could be a store of wealth. But right now the world doesn't need a store of wealth unless you need that store of wealth for things you should not be doing,” Larry Fink added.
At the same time, BlackRock CEO, like many other participants in traditional financial markets, believes in the potential of the blockchain. He believes that the distributed ledger technology (DLT) can be used in a number of products which are currently still managed by a paper workflow. Larry Fink cited mortgage loans and other mortgages as an example.
Fink had noted earlier that he was very enthusiastic about blockchain. He also expressed confidence that the DLT would help improve the Aladdin BlackRock electronic system for managing risks, investment portfolios, and trading operations.
Larry Fink also made negative statements regarding cryptocurrency. In July, he expressed confidence that BlackRock clients were not interested in investing in virtual money since they were not interested in them as an asset class.
Despite such statements, BlackRock has assembled a team of experts from different business areas who analyze information about cryptocurrencies and the blockchain. The experts are also studying the experience of competitors of the investment company who have implemented cryptocurrency projects in their business in order to assess their impact on BlackRock.
However, Fink clarified that the investment giant was studying cryptocurrencies in order to understand how they work and determine whether they would be legitimized as an alternative to cash. Experts also have to determine whether BlackRock should invest in bitcoin futures.
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