- BlackRock has launched a private bitcoin spot trust for institutions.
- Earlier this month, BlackRock announced a partnership with Coinbase to offer a bitcoin trading service to its customers.
- Last year, the $10 trillion asset manager said he was unaware of any institutional interest in bitcoin.
BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager with $10 trillion in assets under management (AUM), has launched a private cash bitcoin trust allowing direct exposure to BTC for its institutional clients, according to a report. company statement.
“Bitcoin is the oldest, largest, and most liquid crypto-asset, and is currently our customers’ primary focus in the crypto-asset space,” according to the statement.
The news follows another Bitcoin-related announcement by BlackRock. Earlier this month, the asset manager announced a partnership with Coinbase allowing its customers to trade bitcoin. However, in this partnership, BlackRock customers would not be able to physically interact with bitcoin outside of the Coinbase Prime platform which would hold custody of the institution’s assets.
“By leveraging Coinbase’s comprehensive trading, custody, prime brokerage and reporting capabilities, joint clients will be able to manage their bitcoin exposures alongside their public and private investments,” BlackRock said at the time of the announcement.
Along the same lines, BlackRock’s institutional bitcoin trust will not support bitcoin deposit transfer. However, the value of the trust will be derived from the spot price of bitcoin and the asset manager will likely leverage a custodial partner again.
Additionally, the launch of a bitcoin spot trust for institutions marks a sharp reversal from statements made last year by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.
“In my last two weeks of business travel, no questions were asked about this,” Fink said. said in reference to the institutional interest in bitcoin.
Nonetheless, institutional investors have decidedly made a correction as BlackRock stated in its Bitcoin confidence announcement:
“Despite the sharp decline in the digital asset market, 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,” it read. in the press release.