‘My thought process has evolved’

Once a “proud skeptic” of crypto, BlackRock (BLK) chairman and CEO Larry Fink continues to soften his stance on the digital currencies as his firm has become one of the biggest players in the increasingly mainstream investment.

Speaking during the New York Times DealBook conference on Wednesday, Fink said that “my thought process has evolved” on cryptocurrencies.

Fink reiterated on Wednesday that his initial view of crypto’s potential was incorrect. On crypto, “my thought process has evolved,” Fink said, repeating a statement that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said about tariffs during an earlier conversation on the same stage.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT), which launched at the beginning of 2024, along with several competitor ETFs, quickly grew to become the largest US-listed bitcoin ETF.

Today, the ETF has accumulated over $70 billion in assets, becoming the world’s fastest-growing ETF and, along with bitcoin holding juggernaut Strategy (MSTR), one of the largest bitcoin holders in the world. The ETF has also become BlackRock’s most profitable product.

Fink’s comments followed a question from the Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin, who noted that in the past, Fink had called crypto “an index for money laundering.” Fink interjected, adding, “and thieves.”

Still, volatility for bitcoin remains a feature of the asset and crypto markets overall, as evidenced by the wipeout on Oct. 10 and the recent sharp sell-off in crypto.

“Bitcoin is still heavily influenced by leveraged players,” Fink said. “That’s why you’re going to have more volatility.”

Read more: Is now the time to invest in bitcoin?

Like many in the traditional financial world, Fink also touted tokenization as crypto’s real opportunity to transform the traditional finance world.

Earlier this week, Fink and BlackRock COO Rob Goldstein laid out the case for how all of finance — from stocks and bonds to real estate and infrastructure assets — could exist on blockchains in a column published in The Economist.

“The whole idea … is to just reduce huge friction costs, making investing easier, simpler … it’s going to allow it for, I would say, a free-flowing process in investing,” Fink said.

BlackRock and other Wall Street firms still need to Senate to vote on crypto market structure legislation, known as the Clarity Act, before diving deeper into those efforts. The act is written to establish a framework for which regulators would oversee certain tokenized assets and effectively solidify the crypto industry’s policy wins secured during the Trump administration.

Coinbase (COIN) CEO Brian Armstrong, who appeared at the event alongside Fink, said he hoped to see a vote in the Senate “within a few months” on the Clarity Act.

“And then I think we’ll have the foundation to really have solutions to this issue be built in the US, and we’ll see a little bit less of this kind of leverage or high-risk activity happening,” Armstrong said.

David Hollerith covers the financial sector, ranging from the country’s biggest banks to regional lenders, private equity firms, and the cryptocurrency space.

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