Don’t look to BlackRock Inc. to revive demand for cryptocurrencies. The world’s largest asset manager isn’t buying, because its clients have zero interest.
“I don’t believe any client has sought out crypto exposure,” Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said in an interview on Bloomberg Television Monday. “I’ve not heard from one client who says, ‘I need to be in this.’”
That means not even a fraction of BlackRock’s $6.3 trillion has been invested in Bitcoin, Ether or any of the other so-called coins, and it signals that institutions remain skeptical of cryptocurrencies as an asset class. For now, Fink said, BlackRock is studying coins to see how they perform and to determine whether they become “legitimized” as alternatives to cash.