Yahoo Finance BlackRock (BLK) Launches Bitcoin Trust, Expands Crypto Exposure
BlackRock, Inc. BLK launched a spot bitcoin private trust for institutional clients in the United States. The fund seeks to track the performance of bitcoin, less expenses and liabilities of the trust.
BLK stated, “Bitcoin is the oldest, largest, and most liquid cryptoasset, and is currently the primary subject of interest from our clients within the cryptoasset space.”
The asset manager added, “Despite the steep downturn in the digital asset market, we are still seeing substantial interest from some institutional clients in how to efficiently and cost-effectively access these assets.”
Notably, the move comes almost a week after BlackRock announced its partnership with a cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase Global, to provide institutional clients with access to digital currencies. Through the partnership, BLK’s institutional clients will have access to crypto trading, custody, prime brokerage, and reporting via Coinbase Prime, which is the exchange’s institutional platform, providing a wide range of features and tools.
Moreover, BLK’s top clients will be able to use the Aladdin investment-management system to oversee their exposure to bitcoin, along with other portfolio assets such as stocks and bonds, and to facilitate financing and trading on Coinbase’s exchange.
BlackRock, which is the world’s largest asset manager, has more than $10 trillion in assets under management. For a long time, there have been rumors about BLK entering the cryptocurrency market.
This March, the company’s CEO, Larry Fink, said that BLK “is studying digital currencies, stablecoins and the underlying technologies to understand how they can help us serve our clients.”
While the latest developments have come at a time when investors are dumping risky digital assets amid the geopolitical turmoil, rising interest rates and fears of an impending recession, there have been indications that client interest has increased for crypto recently from the last year.
Over the past year, shares of BLK have lost 20.5% compared with the 17.6% decline recorded by the industry.
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Currently, BlackRock carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).
A couple of better-ranked stocks from the same space are Noah Holdings Limited NOAH and Atlas Corp. ATCO. Currently, both NOAH and ATCO sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Noah Holdings’ current-year earnings estimates have been revised 3.8% upward over the past 60 days. NOAH’s shares have lost 52.4% over the past year.
The consensus estimate for Atlas Corp’s current-year earnings has been revised 6.7% upward over the past 60 days. Over the past year, ATCO’s share price has declined 1.6%.
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