Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rallied more that 5 percent on Monday but it was off of very old news.
Earlier in the day, Dow Jones’ Financial News reported on the existence of a working group at the $6.3 trillion asset manager, titling the piece, “BlackRock begins exploration of bitcoin”. That was followed by a Reuters interview with CEO Larry Fink saying the company was “evaluating cryptocurrencies.”
However, none of this is actual new.
That’s because BlackRock’s Blockchain Labs has been around for a few years. On YouTube, one can even view a presentation by George Kouzmov, a member of the working group, talk for a full hour to a London Meetup about what they’re up to. That video, which has thus far garnered a paltry 2,239 views, was done in 2016:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWIBEIVNkx0
The crypto community was excited because BlackRock is also the parent company of iShares, the ETF giant with over $1 trillion in assets under management. Yet as Fink told Reuters, he doesn’t see a huge demand for cryptos at the moment.
