BlackRock launches Bitcoin trust – but only for select customers

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(Kitco News) – BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, continues to wade deeper into the realm of cryptocurrency by revealing on Thursday that it has launched a private trust offering institutional clients in the US direct exposure to Bitcoin (BTC).

According to the announcement, the trust will “track the performance of bitcoin, minor expenses and liabilities to the trust,” as part of the firm’s commitment “to provide clients with access to their choice of investment opportunities.”

BlackRock was able to launch the trust without first getting approval from regulators since private investment funds that do not solicit investments from retail investors are not required to register with the authorities.

The move comes as institutional interest in cryptos has been growing despite Bitcoin trading nearly 65% ​​below its all-time high of $68,789, BlackRock noted in its blog.

“Despite the sharp decline in the digital asset market, we continue to see significant interest from some institutional customers in how they can efficiently and cost-effectively access these assets using our technology and product capabilities,” the company said in the post.

The news of this new fund comes just days after it was revealed that BlackRock has partnered with top US-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to provide clients who are members of Coinbase and BlackRock’s Aladdin institutional investment platform access to crypto trading, custody, prime brokerage, and reporting services, starting with Bitcoin.

As noted in today’s announcement from BlackRock, “Bitcoin is the oldest, largest and most liquid crypto-asset, and is currently the primary topic of interest from our clients in the crypto-asset space. Excluding stablecoins, bitcoin maintains close to 50 percent of the industry’s market capitalization.”

Judging by the statement from BlackRock, the asset manager is just beginning its expansion into crypto as it looks to get involved in some of the most popular sectors of the ecosystem.

“BlackRock has conducted work in four areas of digital assets and their associated ecosystems where we see potential to benefit our clients and capital markets more broadly, including: permissioned blockchains, stablecoins, cryptoassets and tokenization,” the post said.

Back in March, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink hinted that today’s announcement was a possibility when he mentioned that “As we see increasing interest from our clients, BlackRock is studying digital currencies, stablecoins and the underlying technologies to understand how they can help us serve our customers, clients”, in his annual letter to shareholders.