KEY POINTS
- Fink admitted Monday he was wrong about his earlier views of Bitcoin
- He revealed that he studied the coin and now believes it is "legitimate"
- Fink previously linked crypto to money laundering and said BlackRock clients weren't interested
Ever since Bitcoin was first introduced to the financial world, there have been countless skeptics and doubters, and one of them was Larry Fink, the chairman and CEO of investment behemoth BlackRock. Things have changed since, and BlackRock's spot $BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF) IBIT, has become the world's most popular Bitcoin ETF. What made Fink change his mind?
An admission of guilt
Speaking with CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" in an episode published Monday, Fink admitted that he was once a "proud skeptic" of Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency by market value.
"As you know, I was a skeptic – I was a proud skeptic!" he said in between laughs. But he revealed that he "studied" the digital asset that was introduced by its pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto. "I studied it, learned about it, and I came away saying, 'Okay, you know, my opinion five years ago was wrong. Here's my opinion saying this is what I believe in today,'" he noted.
A change of heart
He went on to note that he now believes "Bitcoin is legitimate."
For starters, Fink was generally skeptical of all cryptocurrencies in the past. He said six years ago that while he believed in the "potential" behind the emerging technology, crypto was, at the time, "much more of a speculative" thing. He also said that "most" cryptocurrencies "just identifies how much money laundering here is being done in the world."
One year later, he was still skeptical of crypto. He revealed that BlackRock was looking into blockchain technology, but that the investment giant's clients were not really interested in digital assets. He reiterated that he has not heard, at the time, from a single client, that they were looking into purchasing crypto.
Six years later, the business mogul now understands how Bitcoin works. He said the world's first decentralized digital asset "is a legitimate financial instrument that allows you to have maybe an un-correlated, non-correlated type of returns."
An emerging Bitcoin advocate
It can finally be safe to say Fink has become a new advocate for $BTC. He said Monday that he has become "a major believer that there is a role for Bitcoin in portfolios," adding that he sees the coin as "digital gold."
He went on to say that people should start seeing the digital currency as "one alternative" when they fear the future of existing currencies. He also believes there will be a good industrial use for the token.
Fink's views about all other crypto tokens outside Bitcoin is unclear, but at least, for now, another traditional investment expert has taken one step forward to meet the crypto industry halfway.
