“Paper Bitcoin”: Top Expert Debunks Wild BlackRock Rumor

As a seasoned crypto investor with over two decades of experience in traditional finance, I find it reassuring to see financial titans like BlackRock delve into the world of Bitcoin and other digital assets. The recent speculation about BlackRock forcing Coinbase to deposit Bitcoin on-chain seems far-fetched, given their professional approach and extensive track record.


The well-known financial powerhouse, BlackRock, managing a staggering $9.1 trillion in assets, has often attracted speculation from conspiracy theorists. Lately, the company’s involvement with a Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) has also become a topic of discussion among them.

Lately, there have been online discussions suggesting that BlackRock pressured Coinbase to send Bitcoin directly onto the blockchain because they suspected Coinbase might be trading “digital BTC” with Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) providers instead of physical cryptocurrency.

According to Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, it appears that BlackRock is just ensuring their internal data matches up correctly.

This major financial institution operates a blockchain node independently and verifies the IBIT coins’ balances by retrieving information directly from their addresses on Coinbase Prime, which serves as the institutional trading platform for the biggest American cryptocurrency exchange.

BlackRock can share this information with their institutional clients when requested, but it isn’t accessible to the general public because there are worries about spam. For example, one of BlackRock’s digital wallets associated with its tokenized fund has received both NFTs and meme coins.

Rest assured, BlackRock manages approximately 500 Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), and these assets have been safely stored with custodians for many years without any issues. This was pointed out by Balchunas.

Balchunas has added that BlackRock and other ETF issuers are trusted by advisors since they know for sure that they will not have to deal with another FTX scenario.

The ETF analyst responded to a query about the financial giant’s past performance by saying, “A spotless history of 30 years should be sufficient, right? Our ETFs are absolutely reliable and without any involvement from SBF.

According to Adam Cochran, a partner at Cinneamhain Ventures, the collaboration between BlackRock and Coinbase to accelerate settlement deadlines for commodity exchange-traded products (ETPs) is in fact “beneficial” or “positive.

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2024-09-24 00:13