Just a few days after announcing its collaboration with the U.S. exchange Coinbase, BlackRock today said it will open a new trading service with Bitcoin.
The new BlackRock program to invest in Bitcoin
Specifically, the service will be a private bitcoin (BTC) investment trust directed to U.S.-based institutional investors.
In the statement posted on its website today, BlackRock explains that the fund will track Bitcoin’s price performance, net of the trust’s expenses and liabilities.
“Despite the steep downturn in the digital asset market,1 we are still seeing substantial interest from some institutional clients in how to efficiently and cost-effectively access these assets using our technology and product capabilities“, BlackRock’s website announcement page reads.
The reason for this openness to Bitcoin is quickly stated: it is the most liquid asset in the crypto sector.
“Bitcoin is the oldest, largest, and most liquid cryptoasset, and is currently the primary subject of interest from our clients within the cryptoasset space. Excluding stablecoins, bitcoin maintains close to 50 percent of the industry’s market capitalization”
The statement reads.
Moreover, the reason the company felt confident enough to launch this service is that RMI and Energy Web are developing plans to ensure that bitcoin does not pollute too much from mining.
Back in 2020, in fact, the U.S. investment company had already expressed concern at the link between climate change and pollution caused by the operation of Proof of Work.
BlackRock: not just Bitcoin
Also in today’s announcement, BlackRock announced that it is also working on other projects related to the crypto world, especially on stablecoin, asset tokenization, crypto assets, and blockchain, although no further details have been revealed yet, other than the private investment trust in Bitcoin.
BlackRock is collaborating with Coinbase
As mentioned, just a week ago the company announced that it had partnered with Coinbase to have Bitcoin trading within customers’ wallets via Aladdin online banking.
So it’s been a while now since Richard Turnill, head of investment strategy at BlackRock, said in 2018 that investing in cryptocurrencies was destined to lose all their money.
“We don’t see them becoming part of mainstream investment portfolios soon”
he said at the time.
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