#BlackRock made its formal entry into Bitcoin earlier this year when it filed for a Spot Bitcoin #ETF with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). While the file has yet to be accepted by the regulator, CEO Larry Fink has made some encouraging remarks, equating Bitcoin to digital gold.
In light of these developments, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz has spoken out against BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and how he impacts the digital asset.
Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz has claimed that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink's shift of sentiment toward Bitcoin is the finest thing that has happened to Bitcoin.
"I believe Larry Fink is the most significant thing that occurred this year in Bitcoin," Novogratz said during a Bloomberg TV interview with David Rubenstein.
Novogratz says Fink's embrace of Bitcoin demonstrates a change in global opinion toward Bitcoin and other digital currencies.
"180 million individuals throughout the globe, without a gun to their heads, take their hard-earned money and store them in this network of people who operate this technology called bitcoin," he says.
He also believes that Fink's change of heart, along with more cryptocurrency acceptance, might help Bitcoin achieve its all-time high of $69,000 set in 2021.
Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, has long been a critic of cryptocurrencies, even labeling Bitcoin a "index of money laundering."
"Bitcoin only tells you how much demand there is for money laundering throughout the globe," Fink said in 2017.
Nevertheless, the CEO has changed his mind, since earlier in June, BlackRock submitted an application with the SEC to launch a #bitcoin spot ETF, prompting other institutions to follow suit.
Moreover, in a show of support for #cryptocurrencies , Fink remarked that #crypto , particularly bitcoin, had the potential to "revolutionize banking." "We do feel that if we can develop more tokenization of assets and securities - that's what bitcoin is - it might change finance," he said in an interview with Fox Business.
Novogratz also mentioned Ripple's recent SEC win, in which a court ruled that the XRP coin is not a security when sold on secondary markets. The Galaxy Digital CEO feels that the court's ruling demonstrates that regulators are still unfamiliar with the crypto area, and that laws from these agencies are "far from clear."
Thus far, the US Securities and Exchange Commission has continued to classify numerous cryptocurrencies as "securities," filing separate cases against several crypto exchanges and organizations for permitting the sale of "unregistered securities."
But, if the latest judgement is any indication, the regulators are misguided, and there is a need for the US Congress to pass crypto-related legislation to provide stakeholders (including regulators) with greater clarity on how to navigate the business regulatoryly.
