According to the CNBC report, BalckRock’s Rick Rieder revealed that the world’s largest asset manager has begun entering the bitcoin space on Wednesday. Rieder’s remarks, who is BlackRock’s chief investment officer of global fixed income, came on the same day bitcoin broke above $51,000 for the first time. “Today, the volatility of it is extraordinary, but listen, people are looking for storehouses of value,” Rieder said during the interview. Bitcoin has been witnessing a massive winning rally because of increased institutional interest.
BlackRock enters the bitcoin space.
Earlier this year, BlackRock added bitcoin futures as a potential investment for two of its funds, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The funds are BlackRock Strategic Income Opportunities and BlackRock Global Allocation Fund. BlackRock executive said, “people are looking for places that could appreciate under the assumption that inflation moves higher and that debts are building, so we’ve started to dabble a bit into it.” A number of other financial institutions, including BNY Mellon and Mastercard, have made entrances into the crypto space in recent days.
The price of bitcoin has surged more than 70% this year.
As reported earlier, electric-vehicle maker Tesla also announced last week it bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin using cash on its balance sheet and intends to begin accepting the digital coin as payment for its products. The price of the leading cryptocurrency has risen more than 70% this year, adding to a major rally that began in the fall. “My sense is the technology has evolved, and the regulation has evolved to the point where a number of people find it should be part of the portfolio, so that’s what’s driving the price up,” Rieder said.
