BlackRock (BLK) CEO Larry Fink said crypto, specifically bitcoin (BTC), could revolutionize the financial system in an interview with Fox Business on Wednesday.
“We do believe that if we can create more tokenization of assets and securities – that’s what bitcoin is – it could revolutionize finance,” he said. Previously known to be a skeptic of crypto, Fink years ago suggested fans of the asset class heavily used it for “illicit activities.”
Fink continued: “Instead of investing in gold as a hedge against inflation, a hedge against the onerous problems of any one country, or the devaluation of your currency whatever country you’re in – let’s be clear, bitcoin is an international asset, it’s not based on any one currency and so it can represent an asset that people can play as an alternative.”
The iShares unit of BlackRock filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 16 for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund. While BlackRock has an almost perfect track record of getting ETFs approved by the SEC, Fink couldn’t say when a decision for its bitcoin ETF could be expected.
“We hope that, like in the past, we could be working with our regulators and get the filing approved one day, and I have no idea what that one day will be, but we’ll see how that all plays out.”
The apparent bullishness of the CEO of the $8.5 trillion asset manager is having little effect on the price of bitcoin, which continues to trade little-changed at just under $30,500.