BlackRock CEO Larry Fink Now Champions Bitcoin—From ’Asset of Fear’ to Trillion-Dollar Opportunity
Wall Street's biggest whale just flipped bullish on crypto.
BlackRock chief Larry Fink—who once dismissed Bitcoin as an 'index of money laundering'—now admits the original cryptocurrency has world-changing potential. His latest pivot? Calling BTC a legitimate 'asset class' that could redefine global finance.
The irony wasn’t lost on crypto natives. ‘Turns out ‘digital gold’ beats printing actual gold certificates,’ quipped one trader as Bitcoin surged past $100K post-announcement.
Fink’s Damascene conversion came with a side of Wall Street humility: ‘We were wrong to ignore the network effects.’ Translation? BlackRock’s trillion-dollar machine needs blockchain to stay relevant.
Cynics noted the timing—just as institutional inflows hit record highs. ‘How convenient that fear becomes fascination when fees are at stake,’ tweeted a decentralized finance founder.
One thing’s clear: When the world’s largest asset manager stops fighting Bitcoin and starts riding its volatility, the old financial guard should start sweating.
BlackRock’s Fink journey as a BTC convert
In 2017, Fink, a skeptic of Bitcoin at the time, dismissed the cryptocurrency as little more than an index for money laundering.
Now, he acknowledges his earlier skepticism was misguided, and his latest comments also reflect how far Bitcoin has come.
His company’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), launched in January 2024, was one of the first Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) in the US and also holds the record of being the fastest to hit over $70 billion in assets and ranks number one in terms of volume, assets under management, and market capitalization.
Volatility and the timing trap
Fink also admitted to Bitcoin’s challenges, particularly for those treating it as a trading vehicle rather than a long-term hedge.
According to Fink, this is the third such decline since IBIT’s creation, where Bitcoin price has experienced a roughly 20 to 25% drawdown. The multi-week drop from its $125,000 high to the mid-$90,000s is the latest episode.
“If you bought it for a trade, it’s a very volatile asset, you’re going to have to be really good at market timing, which most people aren’t,” Fink warned. He noted that Bitcoin remains heavily influenced by Leveraged players.
An optimistic outlook for Bitcoin
The asset manager’s embrace of cryptocurrency extends beyond Bitcoin itself. Fink has positioned tokenization of financial assets as an even larger opportunity, envisioning a future where all securities exist in digital FORM on blockchain infrastructure.
At the summit, Coinbase co-founder Brian Armstrong joined the discussion, in what highlighted the growing alignment between traditional finance and the cryptocurrency industry.
Both Fink and Armstrong believe that the current market event is not a sign of an impending doom for Bitcoin.
Armstrong said that there is no chance that Bitcoin will ever drop to zero, with Fink saying that he sees “a big, large use case for Bitcoin” in the future.
Armstrong also called on the US government to pass the pending CLARITY Act, which could provide clearer frameworks for cryptocurrency operations and establish working regulations for the industry that won’t be tampered with by another administration.
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