Largest Asset Manager BlackRock May Start Bitcoin Futures Trading

The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, may start trading cash-settled Bitcoin futures. This is according to new filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

• BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, with almost $8 trillion worth of assets under management last year. To put it in perspective – that’s almost 8 times the current capitalization of the entire cryptocurrency market.
• Now, the Wall Street giant has filed two Prospectus documents with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – on behalf of BlackRock Funds V and BlackRock Global Allocation Fund Inc.
• The most important bit about these documents is that they suggest the company may engage in trading cash-settled Bitcoin futures contracts.

Certain Funds may engage in futures contracts based on bitcoin. Bitcoin is a digital asset whose ownership and behavor are determined by participants in an online, peer-to-peer network that connects computers that run publicly accessible or “open source.” […] The only bitcoin futures in which the Funds may invest are cash-settled bitcoin futures traded on commodity exchanges registered with the CFTC.”

• BlackRock’s CEO, Larry Fink, has previously said that bitcoin could be a threat to the US dollar. He said that the asset “caught the attention and the imagination of many people. Still untested, pretty small market relative to other markets. It sees these big giant moves every day… it’s a thin market. Can it evolve into a global market? Possibly.”