BlackRock Debuts A Private Bitcoin Trust For Investors

BlackRock, the largest asset management firm globally, has announced a new private trust that will provide institutional clients of the firm direct exposure to spot prices of Bitcoin (BTC), the leading cryptocurrency.

According to a blog post released Thursday, the asset management firm stated that the trust "seeks to track the performance of bitcoin, less expenses and liabilities of the trust."

"Despite the steep downturn in the digital asset market, we are still seeing substantial interest from some institutional clients in how to efficiently and cost-effectively access these assets using our technology and product capabilities," BlackRock said in the blog post.

BTC has been quite bearish in 2022, dropping from a high of $47,990 in January to a low of $17,622 in June following the crash of Terra and the bankruptcy of crypto lending firm Celsius. However, around the announcement of the new trust, BTC jumped to $24,700, the highest price since June.

"Bitcoin is the oldest, largest, and most liquid cryptoasset, and is currently the primary subject of interest from our clients within the cryptoasset space," BlackRock stated.

The firm also acknowledged the work of non-profit firms like RMI and Energy Web which are developing programs to "bring greater transparency to sustainable energy usage in bitcoin mining, and will follow progress around those initiatives."

The asset management firm also revealed four areas that it believes will potentially benefit its clients.

"BlackRock has been conducting work in four areas of digital assets and their associated ecosystems where we see potential to benefit our clients and capital markets more broadly, including: permissioned blockchains, stablecoins, cryptoassets, and tokenization," the firm said.

The leading asset management firm also recently announced a partnership with crypto exchange Coinbase to develop a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would allow "common clients" to manage their bitcoin exposures alongside their public and private investments "leveraging Coinbase's comprehensive trading, custody, prime brokerage and reporting capabilities."