BlackRock's Larry Fink’s crypto about-face is now complete

Larry Fink spent years casting suspicion on crypto. He once called bitcoin an index for money laundering and, as he reminded the DealBook audience, “and thieves.”

Now the BlackRock chief is offering a different refrain. Speaking at the New York Times event, Fink said that “my thought process has evolved,” acknowledging that his early view of digital assets was wrong.

The shift is not philosophical so much as financial. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, launched in early 2024, has grown into the largest US bitcoin ETF.

It now holds more than $70 billion in assets and ranks among the biggest bitcoin holders globally alongside MicroStrategy. It has also become BlackRock’s most profitable product. With performance like that, scepticism tends to dissolve.

Bitcoin’s volatility remains a central feature of the asset class. Fink pointed to the sell-offs in October and more recent market swings as proof that leveraged traders still dominate the market.

“That is why you are going to have more volatility,” he said. The warning does not diminish his enthusiasm but frames crypto as a maturing market that still carries structural fragility.

What excites Fink is tokenisation. He is part of the growing camp inside traditional finance that sees crypto infrastructure, not crypto speculation, as the real transformation.

In a column in The Economist written with BlackRock chief operating officer Rob Goldstein, he outlined how stocks, bonds, real estate and infrastructure assets could migrate onto blockchains. Fink said tokenisation could “reduce huge friction costs,” simplify investing and create a more fluid financial system.

There are still regulatory hurdles. BlackRock and its Wall Street peers need the Senate to pass the Clarity Act, a proposed framework that assigns regulatory oversight for tokenised assets and entrenches policy wins achieved during the Trump administration. Without that clarity, expansion into tokenised markets will move more slowly.

But the broader direction is clear. The world’s largest asset manager is aligning publicly with the idea that crypto is not a fringe bet but a foundational technology shift.

The evolution of Fink’s stance mirrors the institutionalisation of the sector. Bitcoin is still volatile, and crypto remains risky. Yet with $70 billion flowing through a single ETF, that risk is now squarely part of the mainstream.