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BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink has never been outright dismissive of bitcoin, but he sure sounds more enthusiastic now that his firm, and others, are seeking regulatory approval for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund.
“I was skeptical because the early users were — it was heavily used for, let’s say, illicit activities,” said Fink in an interview on FOX Business Network that aired Wednesday afternoon.
“I think, as it became more accessible — and, also, I do believe the role of crypto is — it is digitizing gold in many ways. Instead of investing in gold as a hedge against inflation, a hedge against the onerous problems of any one country or the devaluation of your currency, whatever country you’re in.”
Fink was asked what a spot bitcoin ETF is meant to accomplish. “Right now, the bid-ask spread for crypto is very expensive. It does erode a lot of the returns that you speak about, because it costs a lot of money right now to transact bitcoin, and it costs a lot of money to get out of that. And so we hope the — our regulators look at these filings that it’s a way to democratize crypto.”
Bitcoin
BTCUSD,
has climbed past the $30,000 mark — up 15% over the last month — on interest from BlackRock as well as rivals including Fidelity in launching a spot ETF. The Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to approve any of those applications.
Also see: Coinbase stock explodes higher as enthusiasm builds for spot bitcoin ETFs
BlackRock stock
BLK,
has slipped 2% this year, underperforming the 16% advance for the S&P 500
SPX,
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