The world’s largest asset manager and exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider, BlackRock, Inc., is looking for opportunities to take the advantages of the “rapidly growing cryptocurrency market”, though the company was skeptical about it in the beginning. The Financial News London was told by the insiders that Terry Simpson, a multi-asset investment strategist, has joined a working group that consists of members of different divisions, assembled by the world’s biggest Bitcoin ETF provider. The sources have also told that this team will ultimately aim to determine whether BlackRock should be get involved in the field of cryptocurrencies, by investigating them.
BlackRock is still has not confirmed these reports. Back is October, 2017, the Global Head of iShares and Index Investments at BlackRock, Mark Wiedman, was quoted saying, “I don’t quite get the point of Bitcoin ETF in any case, because we are talking about trading products that are so difficult to access.” He has said that he would never recommend Bitcoin. He also asked if Bitcoin were successful, why is an ETF required to access it?
This move by the BlackRock has caught the attention of CNBC’s show, Cryptotrader’s host, Ran Neu-Ner, who is also a cryptocurrency trader. He updated a status on his Twitter handle which said, “The difference between a future and an ETF is that an ETF has to buy the underlying taking liquidity out of the market. When the world’s biggest ETF company is looking at Crypto and the SEC has no real reason to block the ETF, it could get a little exciting.”
This news has also caught the attention of Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, a cryptocurrency trading platform. He is said to believe that a regulated ETF could have a substantial impact on the price of Bitcoin. He also was quoted saying, “But we’re one positive regulatory decision away, [maybe] an ETF approved by the SEC, to climbing through $20,000 and even to $50,000 by the end of the year.”
BlackRock’s action has come out days after the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) had filed a proposed rule change to list and trade shares of Van Eyck Investment and SolidX’s Bitcoin ETF, also known as the “Bitcoin Trust”.
This news of BlackRock’s alleged intensions has caused a rapid reaction in the price of the world’s first and foremost Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC). Bloomberg has reported that Bitcoin has marked its biggest increase in the past two weeks [$6619.6 + 0.18%].