BlackRock CEO Explains Why He’s No Longer a Bitcoin Skeptic

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink explained on Monday why it is wrong to be skeptical of Bitcoin and crypto before properly studying the asset class.

The company's newly published Q2 earnings for the investment manager showed record AUM of $10.65 trillion, due in no small part to revenue from its Bitcoin ETF product launched in January.

Larry Fink's Bitcoin Revival.

“As you know … I was a proud skeptic,” Fink said in an interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer on Monday. “I studied it, I learned about it, and I came, OK, my opinion five years ago was wrong.”

In the year In 2017, Fink referred to Bitcoin as a “money laundering index,” considering Bitcoin's only real use case. Skybridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci said he met Fink in 2021, which still called bitcoin “stupid” at the time.

Two years later, the entire crypto industry was overwhelmed with the case of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), whose chairman has a view on Bitcoin that resembles Fink's old view to this day. However, it was only weeks after the SEC filed back-to-back lawsuits against Coinbase and Binance that BlackRock announced June 2023 for iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), now the world's largest Bitcoin ETF.

According to Fink, Bitcoin is a “legitimate financial instrument” that can provide disproportionate profits – although its technology can sometimes be used in a clean manner.

“I believe it's a tool to invest in when you're most scared,” he continued. This leads one to fear that their country is quickly ruining their currency with excessive deficits, which “some countries are,” he said.

Escaping the financial system

He also said that it allows landowners to invest outside of government control.

“I'm a big believer that there is a role for Bitcoin in portfolios,” he concluded. I believe there is a huge industrial use for it and I think a lot of people are missing that.

As of Friday, the BlackRock Bitcoin ETF held $18.3 billion in Bitcoin on behalf of clients, surpassing previous king Greyscale's $15.7 billion AUM.

According to that figure, IBIT enjoyed $4.4 billion since the end of Q1, even though the price of Bitcoin has fallen ~14% since then. Overall, BlackRock received $82 billion in fresh inflows across all asset classes in Q2.