Six years after calling Bitcoin an "index of money laundering," BlackRock's CEO reversed himself on live TV. The reversal came 20 days after BlackRock filed for a spot Bitcoin ETF.
On October 13, 2017, Larry Fink said at an Institute of International Finance event: "Bitcoin just shows you how much demand for money laundering there is in the world. That's all it is." The quote became one of the most-referenced institutional dismissals of Bitcoin on record.
On June 15, 2023, BlackRock filed a spot Bitcoin ETF application with the SEC. No spot Bitcoin ETF had ever been approved in the US. More than a dozen applications had been rejected. BlackRock's SEC approval record going into the filing: 575 wins, 1 loss. The market read this clearly.
Twenty days later, Fink appeared on Fox Business and delivered the reversal: "Bitcoin is an international asset. It's not based on any one currency." "The role of crypto is digitizing gold in many ways."
The SEC approved spot Bitcoin ETFs on January 11, 2024. BlackRock's IBIT reached $10 billion in assets in seven weeks, the fastest any ETF had ever done it. It hit $70 billion in 341 days, roughly five times faster than gold's GLD ETF reached the same mark.
Link to original spot: https://www.foxbusiness.com/video/6330640643112
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