Isn't it nice to see a little bit of this on Bitcoin occasionally? It is only a 5% move, but it is on the back of the SEC loss in court to Grayscale, regarding their rejection of their Bitcoin ETF application. As you likely know, BlackRock also applied for a spot Bitcoin ETF about two months ago and out of almost 600 applications, they have only ever had one rejected.
Seems they know how to apply.
And if you are wondering what this might mean for Bitcoin (and crypto in general), the general consensus is that it will lead to institutional adoption and then of course, corporate investors, all the way down to us little retailers.
$2,369.83B
That is how much BlackRock manages through their current ETFs.
$1110B
That is the market cap of the entire crypto market. Yes, with all the hype that Bitcoin and crypto gets, one company manages ETFs worth over twice as much as the entire cap. That is just their ETFs, in total they manage 8x as much as the cap, yet ask most people on the street, and they probably haven't heard of BlackRock.
And, name a large company and they likely have a stake in them, either directly or though stake in other investment management firms. For instance,
BlackRock and Vanguard are both major shareholders in Fidelity. BlackRock is major in UBS Group. And, Vanguard is the major shareholder in BlackRock, and BlackRock the major in Vanguard.
Investment management relationships are like Game of Thrones!
And this is also why they are successful, because they have their many fingers distributed in so many pies, that they can't lose. No matter what happens in the world, they are covered.
You get the idea...
BlackRock are also invested into 4 of the 5 largest Bitcoin miners:
MicroStrategy, which is famously the largest stock-listed Bitcoin holder:
As said, they can't lose.
So, what happens is that they have their tentacles invested into anything that will make money, and then can leverage that same network to raise capital and support growth. They can use their investment vehicles to provide goods and services to the same companies they own and based on the self-generated demand, raise more capital.
It is a massive circle-jerk.
And, this isn't just limited to the US, it stretches globally and with all of the globalization of corporations, it is very influential. This also means that pretty much, they can almost guarantee that long term, their investments are going to gain value, because they are able to drive not only investment into the companies they own, but also the demand for those goods and services.
In terms of Bitcoin investments, we can assume that they are going to take the same strategy, which means that once they get started publicly, they are going to be using their network to drive the value of their holdings upward, as well as the earnings from their investment management processes, where they can again direct investment to where they will make the most money - because that is their one job.
Because it is spread so broadly, it is almost impossible for them to lose in the long term, because they are covered in the good times and the bad, and even if they lose some percentage of their investment portfolio to company collapse, there are others they are invested in which can fill the whole and take up the slack, without missing a beat.
Now, in the last few years a massive amount of money has been printed, which has driven inflation, and this is going to have to land somewhere. At the moment, a lot of it is going into defense budgets and social securities, but they are ultimately going into the BlackRock coffers too. Once the tide starts to turn and investment shifts back to consumer companies, they will benefit there also, taking tat new inflation and putting it into their bottom line.
Essentially, what they will do is use Bitcoin as a wat to attract investment into their own companies, so that they can expand their exposure to ownership.
Bitcoin itself isn't the answer to anything, it is just a mechanism for tracking value. However, it is the ownership of our world that is truly at stake and crypto offers a way for normal people to start taking ownership in mechanisms that can't be commandeered in the same way as the fiat currencies. Whilst the companies like BlackRock are competing for traditional ownership, bit by bit, the support for decentralization spreads, educates and starts to claw back value, by taking it out of reach, or making it so any entity that becomes abusive, will become "untrusted" in the network, cut out.
This is likely a very long way off.
But in time, perhaps we will be able to take ownership of value and perhaps, the companies that have the most power and influence in the world, the ones that make the most money - won't be corporations of pollution or war. And perhaps, the investment management firms will have to pivot to support what supports us, rather than what harms us.
We need to get the economy working for our species. Not against it.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
