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Just a week after Tesla’s revelation of its $1.5 billion BTC investment, the crypto industry is about to welcome yet another big player into its fold. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has finally started its entry into the Bitcoin space.
“Today the volatility of it is extraordinary, but listen, people are looking for storehouses of value,” BlackRock chief investment officer of global fixed income Rick Rieder said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. “People are looking for places that could appreciate under the assumption that inflation moves higher and that debts are building, so we’ve started to dabble a bit into it.”
Rieder’s remarks came just as Bitcoin rallied past $51,000 for the first time ever. The price surge of the crypto is attributed to the recent entry of a number of well-known companies into the crypto space.
For instance, BNY Mellon, the oldest bank in the U.S., announced that it will put up a digital assets unit this year. Mastercard also revealed that it will support crypto transactions for selected cryptocurrencies on its network sometime in 2021 while Tesla disclosed that bought $1.5 billion in Bitcoin.
“My sense is the technology has evolved and the regulation has evolved to the point where a number of people find it should be part of the portfolio, so that’s what’s driving the price up,” Rieder added.
However, the BlackRock executive did not give details on the firm’s cryptocurrency strategy. “I wouldn’t put a number on the percentage allocation one should have, depends on what the rest of your portfolio looks like,” Rieder said.
BlackRock revealed in January that it plans to invest in Bitcoin future via two of its funds, the BlackRock Strategic Income Opportunities, and BlackRock Global Allocation Fund.
”Each Fund may use instruments referred to as derivatives, which are financial instruments that derive their value from one or more securities, commodities (such as gold or oil), currencies (including bitcoin), interest rates, credit events or indices (a measure of value or rates, such as the S&P 500 Index or the prime lending rate),” BlackRock said in its SEC filings.
