According to Financial Times: US-based asset manager BlackRock is close to attaining the title of the world's largest Bitcoin fund as it pushes further into the digital asset sector, rapidly closing ranks with industry leader Grayscale. Since its launch four months ago, BlackRock's spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund has accumulated $16.7 billion in assets, falling short by less than $1 billion from Grayscale, which had a decade-long and $28 billion lead.
At the same time, BlackRock has also rolled out the fastest-growing tokenized Treasury fund now increasingly used as collateral by crypto hedge funds and market makers for coin and token trading. The developments mark a significant shift in BlackRock's stance on cryptocurrency. In 2017, CEO Larry Fink described Bitcoin as "an index of money laundering," but he now supports Bitcoin's long-term viability and cites it as a crucial part of the financial market's tech revolution.
The asset manager’s strides in digital assets also extend to its support for Securitize, having recently joined Tradeweb and Hamilton Lane in a $47m fundraising round. Also, BlackRock made a minority investment in Circle, a firm that operates the second-largest stablecoin, USDC, two years ago.
In another groundbreaking milestone in March, BlackRock launched a tokenized Treasury fund on Ethereum's public blockchain, the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity fund (Buidl), which has since grown larger than Franklin Templeton's tokenized fund, drawing in $382 million compared to Franklin's $368 million.