BlackRock has launched a spot bitcoin private trust.
The trust will track the performance of bitcoin and be available to BlackRock’s institutional clients in the US.
In a blog post about the trust, the world’s largest asset manager said:
‘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.’
It added that bitcoin was the oldest, largest, and most liquid digital currency, and ‘is currently the primary subject of interest from our clients within the cryptoasset space.’
BlackRock’s trust is comparable to the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, an open-ended grantor trust that is invested exclusively in bitcoin, with the objective of having its net asset value per share track bitcoin’s market price. Historically, it was the only pooled bitcoin vehicle to trade over the counter, making it available to all investors, although that has now changed.
The announcement of the new trust, follows last week’s news that BlackRock’s Aladdin had teamed up with Coinbase’s Prime to offer institutional clients access to digital assets trading, starting with bitcoin.
BlackRock declined to comment beyond the blog post.
