BlackRock's Larry Fink has been named Co-Chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and there's questions about what this might mean for Bitcoin across social platform, X.
BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink has been appointed interim co-chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which organises the annual meeting of leaders in Davos, Switzerland.
Andre Hoffmann, the vice chairman of Swiss based healthcare company Roche Holding, will also be interim co-chairman of the WEF, according to an announcement on Friday.
“The world is more fragmented and complex than ever, but the need for a platform that brings together business, government, and civil society has never been greater,” Mr Fink and Mr Hoffmann said in a joint statement. – Thenationalnews report
I don't aim to dive into whatever conspiracies surround the world economic forum, at least not today.
I'm more interested in the discussions amongst Bitcoin and crypto advocates. I came to realize, thanks to the news of Larry's new position at WEF, that a lot of people love to point out how institutions like “BlackRock” do not own the assets that get people talking about them, that it is all clients' money.
The major reason this gets mentioned a lot, is that generally, when someone, like myself, talk about what role BlackRock plays in centralizing crypto, I point to things like its Bitcoin ETF and more often than not, will say things like “BlackRock is buying up Bitcoin's supply and will use that to influence the network” and that gets certain people upset because, as an ETF issuer, the understanding is that the demand(capital injection) for BlackRock's IBIT is what fuels Bitcoin purchases linked to the institution.
In essence, it isn't BlackRock's money, but that of its clients.
Of a surety, this is true, but it doesn't necessarily disprove the argument of control.
BlackRock manages $12.5 trillion in assets, the largest in the world. I will not go into the ownership of the company because that is generally structured to confuse you.
So when it comes to Bitcoin specifically, BlackRock manages Bitcoin exposure worth approximately $88B through its Spot Bitcoin ETF, IBIT.
Right here, people are essentially saying that this is client's money, not BlackRock, that the company just takes management fees and only simply “manages.”
Some even go as far as saying that it is “retail’s” Bitcoin. That is really cute that they believe that it is retail that's Injected over $88 billion into Bitcoin through BlackRock.
When you look at BlackRock's top clients, you see over 70 central banks, you see 30 national pension funds, 25 sovereign wealth funds and about 40 multilateral bodies.
Beyond this, you'll see leading companies like Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, top insurance companies globally and Japan's $1.5 trillion pension fund.
Just looking at this list, surely these names would have no interest in a world where the financial layer is kept in control of institutions and the government, right?
Beyond this, people fail to understand that as an asset manager, regardless of if these are small investors or big players assets, the fact that a company is even in the position of being trusted to manage said assets, places them in a position to control their clients behaviors and essentially the market of said assets.
The very fact that people and companies already choose to pay management fees and gain Bitcoin exposure through BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF proves that they don't give a shit about what happens on-chain and could not care if BlackRock tried to control that.
They all simply care about one thing and that's gaining exposure to an asset that is performing well.
When you say that BlackRock could centralize Bitcoin, people seem to think that we anticipate that the company would crash the price of Bitcoin.
Even if that could be done in the short-term, that wouldn't be the long-term goal and the only reason it might be done in the short-term would be for profits and probably cheap accumulation.
It's evident that some believe that BlackRock will just play nice and focus on just “management fees.”
Most don't want to imagine that more will be attempted for profits. They don't even need to do it directly, they can just do it through affiliated companies like Coinbase.
As seen in the joint statement from Larry Fink and his Co-Chairman at WEF, the world is fragmented and there's a desire to bring into a single system of connectedness. In my last article on a similar topic, Larry was also quoted saying something similar but the focus was on a global digital currency and system, where everything was “understood.”
They will tell it to you what their plans are, but you'll fixate on things like “client money” and “they'll be lawsuits” until you finally own nothing and be happy.
This is the future they are building. It is evident!