BlackRock Waiting for Market ”Legitimacy” to Launch Crypto ETF

The largest asset manager in the world, BlackRock, has said that any plans to launch a cryptocurrency exchange traded fund (ETF) will be put on hold until the market matures.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink featured on CNBC Thursday, where he shared, “I wouldn’t say never, when it’s legitimate, yes.”

While a number of Bitcoin ETFs have been proposed to the Securities and Exchange Commission for its required approval, the agency has identified a number of issues that have prevented any being launched as of yet. Most notably included is a need to protect investors from activities such as insider trading that it believes the market is particularly susceptible to due to a lack of oversight.

It is this level of independence that the market operates with that Fink sees as a factor stifling its growth into mainstream finance.

“It will ultimately have to be backed by a government. I don’t sense that any government will allow that unless they have a sense of where that money’s going for tax evasion and all of these other issues,” he said, although due to the ideology behind Bitcoin‘s creation, it is very unlikely to become backed by the state.

While Fink was skeptical of the cryptocurrency’s apparent ease of use in illicit activities, he does see a future where a digital currency could be traded as a store of value, something that some investors say is Bitcoin’s primary use case. For now, however, he says that there is no need that he can see for a store of wealth unless it involves ”things you should not be doing”.

Blockchain is something that the CEO does have faith in though, describing BlackRock as a ”huge believer in blockchain”. He cites the most likely area for mass adoption as that which involves laborious paperwork such as mortgage applications and ownership.