‘There’s so much opportunity’ in crypto: BlackRock COO
This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.
Yesterday, Coinbase hosted its annual State of Crypto summit. There were lots of announcements to unpack, especially if we’re talking about consumers.
I want to focus on remarks from a chat between Coinbase’s Brett Tejpaul and BlackRock COO Rob Goldstein, who gave some insight into how the world’s largest asset manager is thinking about crypto.
While he didn’t give a timeline (other than stating that BlackRock has been studying crypto since roughly 2017), he did say that BlackRock saw “incredible utility with regards to stablecoins.”
“And…we saw a real requirement for the underlying assets to be managed, not sort of like a money market fund, but in a money market fund,” he added.
The other leg of its strategy was all about access, Goldstein said, something that came with IBIT. He noted that IBIT, even before its success, was geared at being a “bridge strategy” designed to allow folks to gain exposure to bitcoin without ever buying bitcoin itself.
“An interesting fact about IBIT that I think is quite remarkable is that of the 25 largest ETFs in the world, the youngest one — aside from IBIT — is 12 years old. IBIT is 18 months old,” he said.
Then you have BUIDL…and, well, it seems like BlackRock’s played their hands right so far when it comes to success as a bridge.
However, Goldstein noted that parts of the financial system are ripe for innovation — a fact I think we can all agree on.
“The frictions that still exist are much more oriented towards funds. There is a legacy ecosystem that’s been built over the past several decades that just has a lot of cost in it, it’s slow, it doesn’t scale that well, and I think that’s a natural place for innovation and disruption, just through technology and tokenization,” he said.
But it really was Goldstein’s last point that made me realize just how bullish BlackRock is on the space.
“This game is extremely early innings. It is extremely, extremely, extremely early innings. There’s so much more opportunity here. It’s barely started,” he said.
Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters: