- Larry Fink told Bloomberg News a new player is eyeing big BTC purchases.
- He said the price moves could be huge.
- Other Wall Street CEOs also express bullish views on crypto.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said Wednesday that he is having conversations with sovereign wealth funds that are actively exploring allocating 2% and 5% of their portfolios to Bitcoin.
“If everyone adopted that conversation, it would be $500,000, $600,000, $700,000 per Bitcoin,” Fink told Bloomberg News in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
He added that jitters about political and economic instability is also driving Bitcoin adoption.
“If you’re frightened of the debasement of your currency, you can have an internationally based instrument called Bitcoin that will overcome those local fears,” he said.
Mainstream asset class
Rising interest among sovereign wealth funds, which manage billions of dollars for governments worldwide, is the latest sign Bitcoin is becoming a mainstream asset class.
Bitcoin, which was priced at $104,806 in late afternoon trading UK time, has jumped almost 8% in the last seven days, according to CoinGecko.
Fink’s comments come after the spot Bitcoin ETF closed out 2024 as the best debut in the asset product’s history. BlackRock’s iShares fund holds more than 546,000 Bitcoin worth $60 billion.
Other Wall Street chieftains also expressed bullish views on Bitcoin.
“If the rules come in and make it a real thing that you can actually do business with, you’ll find that the banking system will come in hard on the transactional side of it,” Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, told CNBC at Davos.
Moynihan suggested adding crypto as a payments product — much like Apple Pay. “This would just be another form of payment,” he said.
Innovative technology
Robin Vince, the CEO of BNY, a bank in New York, also said blockchain-based assets look promising.
“Digital assets represent a new interesting, innovative technology, which we think could be important to the financial system over the next 10, 20 years,” said BNY CEO .
Analysts predicted in 2024 that the four largest banks would start offering crypto custody for clients this year.
Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent based in Buenos Aires. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.