Following the crypto revolution in 2021, many prolific institutions have embraced Bitcoin. In the latest development, the investments giant and the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock indicated that it could potentially include BTC futures in its funds in the coming days.
This was revealed in a regulatory filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC], as per which BlackRock held 37 futures contracts from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange [CME] that are worth approximately $360,458 earlier this year.
The latest figures regarding BlackRock’s holdings only represent a mere 0.0014% of the firm’s colossal Global Allocation Fund on reporting day of 31st of January. However, it is still not clear if the asset manager still holds any Bitcoin futures contracts. In addition, the original batch of futures contracts held by the company expired this 26th of March, as per the filing.
Dabbling in Bitcoin
This development comes almost two months after the multi-trillion-dollar asset manager had revealed that it has started to “dabble” in Bitcoin. While speaking about Bitcoin on CNBC, BlackRock’s chief investment officer of global fixed income, Rick Rieder had earlier stated that,
“I wouldn’t put a number on the percentage allocation one should have, depends on what the rest of your portfolio looks like. Today the volatility of it is extraordinary, but listen, people are looking for storehouses of value,” Rieder said on “Squawk Box.” “People are looking for places that could appreciate under the assumption that inflation moves higher and that debts are building”.
As mentioned above, BlackRock registers an astonishing $9 trillion in assets under management[ AUM], and happens to be the biggest investment management company in the world. Tailing behind it are other investment firms such as JPMorgan Chase, Fidelity, Vanguard, UBS, and BNY Mellon. Hence, the news is crucial for the cryptocurrency which has seen significant adoption this bull season.
In January this year, BlackRock had added Bitcoin futures as a potential investment for two of its funds. This was according to the company’s SEC filings. The two funds, in question, are BlackRock Strategic Income Opportunities and BlackRock Global Allocation Fund.