05/03 update below. This post was originally published on May 2
Bitcoin
Bitcoin
The bitcoin price remains near $60,000 per bitcoin, up around 50% from the beginning of the year, powered by a fleet of new Wall Street spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that a leak last week revealed could soon be hit by a fresh earthquake.
Now, as the “end goal” for Tesla billionaire Elon Musk’s X is poised to cause bitcoin price chaos, an executive at spot bitcoin ETF issuer BlackRock
BlackRock
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Sovereign wealth funds, such as those run by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, are talking to BlackRock about … [+]
“Many of these interested firms—whether we’re talking about pensions, endowments, sovereign wealth funds, insurers, other asset managers, family offices—are having ongoing diligence and research conversations, and we’re playing a role from an education perspective,” Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock’s head of bitcoin and crypto, told Coindesk, adding BlackRock has seen “a re-initiation of the discussion around bitcoin.”
Bitcoin interest from sovereign wealth funds such as Norway’s $1.6 trillion fund, Saudi Arabia’s $1 trillion Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Kuwait’s Investment Authority (KIA), the oldest sovereign wealth fund in the world, would represent a huge shift in investment attitude toward bitcoin and crypto.
05/03 update: BlackRock “is meeting with wirehouses of big banks in hope that they’d sign off on recommending bitcoin ETF to clients in the coming months,” The Information reported, citing anonymous sources. Currently, clients have to initiate discussions about spot bitcoin ETFs with their advisors.
Last month, the chief investment officer at bitcoin ETF issuer Bitwise, Matt Hougan, predicted wirehouses opening up bitcoin ETFs to retail investors, hedge funds and independent financial advisors would trigger an “even bigger” wave to hit the bitcoin price than the ETF approvals in January.
This week, BlackRock announced an expansion into Saudi Arabia, with the world’s largest asset manager set to get as much as $5 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to invest in the Middle East and build a Riyadh-based investments team.
Last month, speculation about the identity of a mystery bitcoin buyer sparked wild theories the country of Qatar had begun buying bitcoin, with Max Keiser, an outlandish bitcoin investor who is working with El Salvador on its bitcoin strategy, claiming last year without providing evidence that Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund is “rumored to looking to buy $500 billion bitcoin.”
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The bitcoin price has rocketed higher over the last year.
The arrival of long-awaited spot bitcoin ETFs on Wall Street this year have already opened up bitcoin to a new cohort of investors who previously regarded it as an unproven store of value.
The largest of the new funds, BlackRock’s IBIT, has amassed $17 billion in assets under management in the three months since its debut, recently notching a 71-day inflow streak.
Last week, Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley
