(Kitco News) – Despite Bitcoin's (BTC) struggles to generate momentum over the past seven months while gold surged to new record highs, the CEO of one of the world's largest asset management firms believes that King Crypto is still well on its way to cementing its position as ‘digital gold.’
While speaking during a Q3 earnings call, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said that digital assets will be more integrated with the global financial system moving forward, and the top-ranked crypto by market cap – Bitcoin – is an “asset class in itself.”
Fink started his comments by addressing the increased focus on whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris will be better for cryptocurrencies, saying, “Well, first, I’m not sure if either President or other candidate would make a difference. I do believe the utilization of digital assets is going to become more and more of a reality worldwide.”
He noted that BlackRock has been engaged in conversations “with institutions worldwide, conversations about how they should think about digital assets, what type of asset allocations there should be.”
Fink said BlackRock believes that “Bitcoin is an asset class in itself. It is an alternative to other commodities like gold.”
“And so, I think the application of this form of investment will be expanded to Ethereum (ETH),” he said. “As a blockchain, [it] can grow dramatically. So if we can create more acceptability, more transparency, more analytics related to these assets, then it will be expanded.”
Fink also pushed back against those who cite the lack of clear regulations as one of the main factors holding back the wider adoption of digital assets.
“But I truly don’t believe it’s a function of regulation, of more regulation, less regulation,” he said. “I think it's a function of liquidity, transparency,” and building better, more accessible products.
Fink highlighted the launch of several financial products in the past that were initially met with low demand but have since become major markets.
“It’s no different than years ago when we started the mortgage market, years ago when the high yield market occurred,” he said. They “started off very slow, but built as we built better analytics and data, and then through better analytics and data, more acceptance and a broadening of the market. And I truly believe we will see a broadening of the market of these digital asset.”
“And then we’ll see how each and every country looks at their own digital currency,” he added. “That’s a very different asset than a Bitcoin in itself. But I do believe what we’re going to witness as we build out better analytics, and then the question is, how do we see in this country the role of digitizing the dollar, and what role does that play?”
“That’s a very different question related to, let’s say, Bitcoin and other items like that,” Fink said. “But all of that is going to be under discussion.”
He also noted the significant growth that has occurred in other countries. “We’re seeing big success in India, in Brazil in the digitization of their own currency for various different reasons,” he said. “But we believe the technology of these blockchains is going to become very addictive. And then you will overlay AI, and having better data analytics, the applicability and the broadening of these markets will occur.”
