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‘The Next Generation’—BlackRock CEO Reveals $8 Trillion Fund’s Huge Crypto Prediction After Bitcoin And Ethereum Price Crash

Dec 04, 2022 * Billy Bambrough

December 5, 2022

Bitcoin, ethereum and other major cryptocurrencies have suffered an almighty crash this year (though Elon Musk sent one small cryptocurrency sharply higher).

The bitcoin price has crashed by around 70% since late last year, plunging under $17,000 per bitcoin and dragging down the ethereum price and raising fears the entire crypto market could be "headed for oblivion."

Now, the CEO of BlackRockBLK 0.0%, the world’s largest asset manager with around $8 trillion in assets under management that signed a major deal with Coinbase earlier this year, has predicted crypto's blockchain technology will usher in "the next generation for markets."

"I believe the next generation for markets, the next generation for securities, will be tokenization of securities," BlackRock's Larry Fink, who's previously expressed skepticism over crypto, said on stage at the New York Times DealBook Summit this week.

Bitcoin and crypto's blockchain technology allows traditional assets to be "tokenized" on a public ledger, potentially making the transfer of anything from stocks, bonds, real estate and alternative investments like art, cheaper and easier.

"I actually believe this technology is going to be very important," Fink said. "Think about instantaneous settlement [of] bonds and stocks, no middlemen, we’re going to bring down fees even more dramatically. Think about it. It changes the whole ecosystem."

However, Fink warned many of today's biggest cryptocurrencies and crypto companies won't survive, pointing to the collapsed FTX crypto exchange as at odds with "whole foundation of what crypto is."

FTX's dependence on its FTT exchange cryptocurrency, used as loan collateral, played a part in its implosion after the price of FTT suffered a sharp downturn.

"I actually believe most of the companies are not going to be around," Fink said. BlackRock indirectly invested around $24 million in FTX. However, it was not in the "core part" of BlackRock’s business, according to Fink.

In September, BlackRock launched a blockchain company exchange-traded fund (ETF), giving investors exposure to 35 different companies.

Meanwhile, bitcoin, ethereum and crypto price watchers are trying to gauge market sentiment following two major Federal Reserve earthquakes this week.

"The series of important economic data released this week so far have sent a mixed signal and bitcoin lost direction after recovering $17,000 per bitcoin on Wednesday," Yuya Hasegawa, crypto market analyst at Bitbank, said in an emailed note.

"Surprisingly, bitcoin is on course to test the lower bound of the June-to-October range from which the price broke down due to the FTX shock last month. It is not likely for the price to easily recover that level of $17,600."