BlackRock (BLK), the asset management giant that oversees more than $13 trillion in assets, is stepping up efforts to mainstream traditional finance (TradiFi), seeking a larger role in tokenization as a way to unlock access to markets and streamline the way assets are traded.
Teams across the company are exploring how to use tokenization to make markets more efficient and accessible, and leadership is hinting at bigger moves ahead, CEO Larry Fink said during an earnings call after Tuesday’s earnings release.
“I think we’ll have some interesting announcements in the next few years about how we could play a bigger role in this whole idea of ​​tokenization and digitization of our assets,” Fink said.
Fink said he believes digital assets, a market currently worth more than $4.5 trillion, will grow “significantly” in the coming years.
BlackRock was one of the first to issue bitcoins in cash and ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the US, and are the largest products of their type with $93 billion and $17 billion in assets under management (AUM), respectively.
The asset manager is also behind the largest tokenized money market fund on the market, the $2.8 billion BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) issued with tokenization specialist Securitize and available on several blockchains including Ethereum, Solana and Avalanche. BlackRock led Securitize’s $47 million fundraising round last year, betting that tokenization would gain traction.
BlackRock’s assets under management grew to $13.4 trillion in the third quarter of the year, up from $11.4 trillion a year earlier. The company reported $61 million in revenue from its digital asset products, just a fraction of the company’s total revenue of $6.5 billion, according to the earnings release.
BlackRock shares traded about 1.5% higher during morning trading on Tuesday.
Read more: BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF generates more income than its flagship S&P 500 fund
