- BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said Bitcoin has a place in investorsâ portfolios.
- Fink said the cryptocurrency is useful to escape monetary debasement.
- His repeated endorsements will assuage senior investor fears about Bitcoin, according to an analyst.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink reiterated his belief in Bitcoin on Monday morning on CNBC.
âIâm a major believer that there is a role for Bitcoin in portfolios,â Fink said, adding that it is âone of the asset classes that we all look at.â
Fink said he had been a âproud scepticâ of the top cryptocurrency in the past â he called it an âindex of money launderingâ in 2017 â but had changed his mind about it.
He cited fear of monetary debasement as a prime reason why investors may be interested in gaining exposure to the cryptocurrency, especially in countries suffering from high levels of inflation.
âItâs an instrument that you invest in when youâre frightened,â Fink said. âYou have an opportunity to invest in something that is outside your countryâs control.â
Referring to the cryptocurrency as âdigital gold,â Fink added that he saw Bitcoin as a hedge against the optimism he has in the world.
âBitcoin is not an instrument for hope â unless youâre hopeful youâre going to make a lot of money on it,â he said.
Itâs not the first time Fink has praised Bitcoin. In August 2023, as BlackRock, the worldâs largest asset manager, geared to get its spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund off the ground, Fink said crypto was âdigitising gold in many ways.â
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He also told Fox Business in January that he had come around to Bitcoin after seeing its international nature. âItâs bigger than any government,â he said.
BlackRockâs Bitcoin ETF has accumulated $18.2 billion in assets since it launched in January and has been deemed an unprecedented by analysts.
âHard to overstate how big a deal it is for Larry Fink, who runs $10.6 trillion, to keep giving these full throated endorsements of Bitcoin as legit asset class for everyday portfolios,â Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst Eric Balchunas posted on X.
âBuy in from BlackRock â as well as other legacy firms like Fidelity â gives boomer advisors comfort and cover to make the allocation,â Balchunas said.
Crypto market movers
- Bitcoin is up 5% in the last 24 hours, trading for $63,000.
- Ethereum rose by 5.7% in the same period, at $3,400.
What weâre reading
Tom Carreras is a markets correspondent at DL News. Got a tip about Bitcoin and Larry Fink? Reach out at tcarreras@dlnews.com