- Larry Fink says 'liquidity and transparency' will drive the growth of Bitcoin and its ilk.
- It doesn’t matter if Donald Trump or Kamala Harris wins on November 5 for that to happen, the BlackRock CEO said.
- The remarks mark a turnaround for Fink who was a crypto sceptic three years ago.
Larry Fink says Bitcoin’s set to soar no matter who is in the Oval Office.
Unlike other pundits, who suggest the $1.2 trillion asset’s growth is a function of regulations, the BlackRock CEO believes growth will arise from enhanced analytics and more acceptance by investors.
“I’m not sure if either president would make a difference,” said Fink during the company’s third-quarter earnings call with analysts on Friday.
“I truly don’t believe it’s a function of regulation,” he said. “It’s a function of liquidity [and] transparency.”
“Years ago, when we started the mortgage market, years ago when the high-yield market occurred, [it] started off very slow,” he said. “It built as we built better analytics and data, and then better analytics and data, more acceptance, and a broadening of the market. And I truly believe we will see a broadening of the market of these digital assets.”
When asked which aspect of the mortgage market he referred, a BlackRock spokesperson told DL News that “he was invoking his experience in the early 80s at First Boston when he was involved in early mortgage securitisations.”
The remarks mark a turnaround for Fink, who sided with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon on the crypto-sceptic side of the debate in 2021. His comments last week are the latest sign of the BlackRock CEO’s evolution into one of Bitcoin’s most bullish proponents.
Since the $11.5 trillion asset manager launched its spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund in January, the ETF has amassed billions in investments and broken record after record for volume traded.
Fink said on the call that the fund manager’s Bitcoin ETF has soared to a whopping $23 billion in its first nine months, “and we will continue to pioneer new products to be making investing easier and more affordable.”
At the same time, BlackRock’s bullish Bitcoin marketing campaign has been put into overdrive.
In a September investor note that echoed the heady views of laser-eyed maximalists, BlackRock analysts compared Bitcoin to gold and touted its performance during acute geopolitical crises.
To be sure, Fink doesn’t put this year’s hotly contested elections in the US in that category.
His comments echo those of Standard Chartered. The UK bank predicts that Bitcoin will hit $200,000 in 2025 regardless of whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris wins the US presidential election on November 5.
This is a key change from just a few months ago when many in the crypto industry sided with the Republican nominee. In Trump, they saw an end to Joe Biden’s administration’s crackdown on digital assets.
Since then, Trump and Harris have made pro-crypto overtures in their public statements.
Correction: The top bullet of a previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Fink said that Bitcoin will become as big as the US housing market. Fink was referring to mortgage products he didn’t name.
Update: Adds more of Fink’s comments on the growth of digital assets.
Liam Kelly is a DeFi Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at liam@dlnews.com.