BLACK ROCK TO DIGITALIZE ALL ASSETS ON EARTH.

JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)

BLACK ROCK TO DIGITALIZE ALL ASSETS ON EARTH.

HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER

JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.(IN 1 HR THE STOCK MARKETS WORLDWIDE WILL CRASH)
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed:(CONFISCATED) their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

MARK OF THE BEAST (engraved microchip in your hand or forehead)

NEW YORK CITY.

JEREMIAH 51:29-32
29  And the land shall tremble and sorrow: for every purpose of the LORD shall be performed against Babylon,(AMERICA-NEW YORK) to make the land of Babylon (NEW YORK) a desolation without an inhabitant.
30  The mighty men of Babylon (AMERICA) have forborn to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might hath failed; they became as women: they have burned her dwellingplaces; her bars are broken.
31  One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to shew the king of Babylon (NEW YORK) that his city is taken at one end,
32  And that the passages are stopped,(THE WAR COMPUTERS HACKED OR EMP'D) and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are affrighted.(DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO)

JEREMIAH 50:3,24
3 For out of the north (RUSSIA) there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast.
24 I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon,(NEW YORK) and thou wast not aware: thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the LORD. (RUSSIA A SNEAK ATTACK ON NEW YORK)

REVELATION 18:9-11,15-21
9 And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,(NUKE ATTACK I BELIEVE FROM RUSSIA)
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
11 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:
15 The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,
16 And saying, Alas, alas that great city,  (NEW YORK) that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
18 And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city! (NEW YORK)
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.(1 HOUR NEW YORK IS GONE)
20 Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.
21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon (NEW YORK) be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.

MICROCHIP DATA 2024
https://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/aemDocuments/documents/MCU08/ProductDocuments/DataSheets/AVR32DA28-32-48-Data-Sheet-DS40002228.pdf

REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, (SLAVE) to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM

I KNOW THIS MARK WILL BE A MICROCHIP IMPLANT UNDER THE SKIN. LETS LOOK UP WHAT THE WORD MARK SAYS IN REVELATION 13:16-18, 14:9,11, 15:2, 16:2, 19:20, 20:4-ALL THESE VERSES FROM THE BOOK OF REVELATION SPEAK OF THIS DICTATORS MARK. NOW LETS SEE WHAT IT MEANS FROM STRONGS EXAUSTIVE CONCORDANCE OF THE BIBLE. UNDER MARK PAGE 684.MARK UNDER MARK. THE OLD TESTAMENT IS UNDER HEBREW AND THE NEW TESTAMENT IS UNDER GREEK. SO WHEN WE LOOK UNDER REVELATION 13:16-17 WE SEE IT IS UNDER GREEK, SO WE GO TO GREEK IN THE BACK SECTION AND GO TO 5480 TO SEE WHAT IT SAYS THIS MARK WOULD BE. SO LETS GET TO IT.MARK IN STRONGS GREEK 5480 XAPAYUA CHARAGMA, KHAR-AG-MAH: FROM THE SAME AS 5482: A SCRATCH OR ETCHING, I.E STAMP (AS A BADGE OF SERVITUDE), OR SCULPTURED FIGURE-(STATUE):-GRAVEN, MARK FROM 5482 XAPAE CHARAX, KHAR-AX; FROM XAPAOOW CHARASSO (TO SHARPEN TO A POINT; AKIN TO 1125 THROUGH THE IDEA OF SCRATCHING); A STAKE, I.E (BYIMPL.) A PALISADE OR RAMPART (MILITARY MOUND FOR CIRCUMVALLATION IN A SIEGE): - TRENCH FROM 1125 YPAPOE GRAPHO, GRAF-0; A PRIM. VERB; TO "GRAVE", ESPEC. TO WRITE; FIG. TO DESCRIBE:-DESCRIBE, WRITE (-ING, -TEN).G5516-GO TO G4742-666 - STRONGS NT 4742: στίγμα - στίγμα, στιγματος, τό (from στίζω to prick; (cf. Latinstimulus, etc.; German stechen, English stick, sting, etc.; Curtius, § 226)), a mark pricked in or branded upon the body. According to ancient oriental usage, slaves and soldiers bore the name or stamp of their master or commander branded or pricked (cut) into their bodies to indicate what master or general they belonged to, and there were even some devotees who stamped themselves in this way with the token of their gods (cf. Deyling, Observations, iii., p. 423ff); hence, τά στίγματα τοῦ (κυρίου so Rec.) Ἰησοῦ, the marks of (the Lord) Jesus, which Paul in Galatians 6:17 says he bears branded on his body, are the traces left there by the perils, hardships, imprisonments, scourgings, endured by him for the cause of Christ, and which mark him as Christ's faithful and approved votary, servant, soldier (see Lightfoots Commentary on Galatians, the passage cited). (Herodotus 7, 233; Aristotle, Aelian, Plutarch, Lcian, others.) 

THE INVENTOR OF THE MICROCHIP IMPLANT-CARL SANDERS MICROCHIP ENGINEER LEADER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgH9D6n4ZWo

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink Declares “Tokenization of All Assets” Era Has Begun-Zoran Spirkovski-October 14, 2025

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink stated the financial industry is at “the beginning of the tokenization of all assets” during an Oct. 14 interview on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street. The comment came as the firm’s iBIT Bitcoin ETF surpassed $100 billion in assets and total digital holdings reached $107.4 billion.Fink outlined a strategy to access $4.1 trillion held in digital wallets globally by digitizing traditional financial products. He described the approach as “repotting” assets like ETFs into digital formats, pointing to the firm’s tokenized money market fund and expanding digital asset platform as examples.Volatile ETF Flows Contrast Strategic Vision-The long-term vision contrasts with recent institutional fund movements. On Oct. 13, Ethereum ETFs recorded $428.5 million in net outflows, with BlackRock’s ETHA fund contributing $19.1 million to the selloff, according to Farside Investors data.Two days earlier, Ethereum ETFs posted $174.9 million in aggregate outflows, led by BlackRock’s $80 million withdrawal fromETHA. The Oct. 10 move coincided with approximately $114 million in increased on-chain Ethereum staking deposits, suggesting potential reallocation from non-yield ETF positions to staking.The recent outflows follow record inflows for Ethereum ETFs in mid-September. BlackRock’s ETHA recorded its largest single-day intake of $363 million on Sept. 15, the highest in 30 days at the time.BlackRock manages $17.25 billion across its digital asset ETFs and primarily uses Coinbase Prime for custody operations, with over $17.2 billion in withdrawals and $2.5 billion in deposits logged with the counterparty since March 2024, based on Arkham Intelligence tracking.The asset manager’s tokenization push aligns with broader institutional adoption, including recent moves by trading platforms to enable 24/7 access to tokenized securities.Bitcoin Consolidates Above $112K-Bitcoin traded at $113,242 as of press time, maintaining its position above key support at $110,217 despite bearish pressure across short-term timeframes. The cryptocurrency faces immediate resistance at $114,716, while technical indicators reveal diverging signals across different time horizons.However, the broader weekly trend remains constructive, with BTC price trading 74% above the 200-week moving average, suggesting underlying strength in the long-term structure.Read original story BlackRock CEO Larry Fink Declares “Tokenization of All Assets” Era Has Begun by Zoran Spirkovski at Coinspeaker.com

DLNews-BlackRock dominates all ETFs with $3.5bn haul: ‘that’s how hungry the fish are’October 8, 2025

BlackRock investors are relentless.Larry Fink’s firm led exchange-traded fund flows across every sector last week, topping the list with $3.5 billion in flows into its Bitcoin ETF, IBIT.That’s 10% of all net inflows into ETFs.In second and third place came Vanguard and State Street. Their flagship S&P 500 trackers, SPLG and VOO, hauled in $2.4 billion and $2.3 billion, respectively.What’s impressive, however, is that both are getting lapped by a two-year-old. BlackRock’s IBIT has been around since January 2024, while Vanguard’s SPLG is 20 years old, and State Street’s VOO has been around for 15 years.‘Enjoy while it lasts’Still, BlackRock wasn’t alone in its feeding frenzy.Every single Bitcoin ETF took in cash last week, with a total of 43,100 Bitcoin worth about $4.8 billion, according to Coinglass.“That’s how hungry the fish are,” said Eric Balchunas, a Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst. “Two steps forward mode. Enjoy while it lasts.”Moreover, flows into Bitcoin ETFs are nearly on par with 2024, with just under three months still to go. Year-to-date, inflows are now at $48.3 billion versus last year’s $48.5 billion, according to James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares.Since its inception, BlackRock Bitcoin investors have been insatiable.The fund is now nearing $100 billion in assets under management, making it the most profitable of all BlackRock ETFs.Loads of that capital comes from investors who had to wait a decade before the SEC greenlit a Bitcoin-linked exchange-traded product. Now that it’s here, almost two years in, investors can’t get enough of it.Favourable factors-And lately, conditions have been favouring even more exposure to crypto’s top asset.The “sustained high appetite” is driven by several factors, Butterfill told DL News.For one, the Fed is starting to cut interest rates — which tends to favour risky assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum — while the US government shutdown is forcing investors to find protection.“The ongoing U.S. government shutdown impasse shows no clear path to resolution,” said Butterfill. “This increasingly projects an image of ineffectiveness and raises questions about US creditworthiness.”Off the back of BlackRock’s voracious appetite and the confluence of macro factors came a new all-time high for Bitcoin.The crypto topped $126,000 on Monday for the first time.More than all VCs-BlackRock’s $3.5 billion intake is nothing short of impressive.Notably, that figure represents more capital than the entire crypto venture capital funding for the first quarter of 2024 by a wide margin.Back then, VCs ploughed just over $2.2 billion into crypto startups, according to DefiLlama.With some of the recent developments in corporate Bitcoin adoption, there are plenty more bullish signs flashing.Take crypto treasuries. They’re the firms that buy and hold tokens to bolster their balance sheets, hoping to ride the coattails of Bitcoin and Ethereum’s historic price appreciation.Currently, the top 100 Bitcoin treasuries hold approximately 1 million Bitcoin, valued at around $127 billion, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net.And that’s just Bitcoin. Ethereum treasuries have been even more aggressive than their Bitcoin counterparts, accumulating more than $25 billion in barely six months.Pedro Solimano is DL News’ Buenos Aires-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink: Bitcoin and Crypto 'Serve Same Purpose as Gold'-Callan Quinn-October 13, 2025

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has once again reiterated cautious approval of crypto investments and walked back previous comments he made in October 2017 about Bitcoin being an “index of money laundering.”Speaking with CBS on Sunday, Fink said that “I did say Bitcoin, because we were talking about Bitcoin then, was the domain of money launderers and thieves.”“But you know, the markets teach you, you have to always relook at your assumptions. There is a role for crypto in the same way there is a role for gold, that is, it’s an alternative,” he said.In his latest comments, however, Fink also urged caution. “For those looking to diversify, it is not a bad asset, but I don’t believe that it should be a large component of your portfolio,” he added.BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, oversees roughly $12.5 trillion in assets. It launched one of the first U.S. crypto spot Bitcoin ETFs in 2024 following regulatory approval from the SEC. Its iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF is the largest crypto ETF with more than $93.9 billion assets under management.Fink’s shift in tone over the years is in line with a broader softening of Wall Street’s stance on cryptocurrencies. He was part of a cohort of CEOs who once dismissed Bitcoin outright. In 2017, he called it an “index of money laundering,” while JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon described it as “a fraud” and said people who owned it were “stupid,” likening the asset to the Dutch tulip mania in the 1630s.Since then, the mood has changed, with Fink taking a more conciliatory tone from 2023 onwards. Major financial firms, from asset managers to investment banks, are gradually moving into the crypto sector, drawn by investor demand even as they warn of volatility and regulatory risk.In a letter to investors earlier this year, Fink himself noted that half of the demand for BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF has been "from retail investors, and three-quarters of those investors had never owned an iShares product before."BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF Is Already Its Most Profitable, Surpassing Older ETFsChief Investment Officer at Sygnum Fabian Dori told Decrypt that particularly since the re-election of U.S. President Donald Trump, the embrace of crypto assets has moved from institutional involvement to institutional adoption.“If there was any need for further confirmation of the increasing institutional adoption, it has probably been provided by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink flagging Bitcoin as a potential replacement of the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency in case the U.S. debt situation would spiral out of control," he said. "These developments have driven Bitcoin dominance, the share of Bitcoin’s market cap relative to the total crypto asset market cap, to a level not seen for years."Leading global traditional asset managers such as BlackRock or Fidelity have already added Bitcoin to the strategic asset allocation of some of their investment products, while corporations such as Tesla, Strategy, and Metaplanet have integrated Bitcoin into their corporate strategy as a hedge against inflation.Dori added institutions are interested in three key use cases: Specific crypto assets as an alternative store of value, specific crypto assets as an alternative means of payment and specific crypto assets as a next-generation infrastructure  that enables decentralized application economies.“Increased macro uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, and the growing risk of currency debasement are factors that promote Bitcoin’s safe haven or store of value attributes,” he said.Still, not everyone is convinced.Last week, British investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown warned users to steer clear of Bitcoin, calling it an asset with “no intrinsic value.” In a notice to clients, the firm said crypto “shouldn’t be relied upon to help clients meet their financial goals.”Don't Buy Bitcoin, Warns UK Investment Giant Hargreaves Lansdown—Here's Why-But firms are still feeling pressure to meet customer demand for these sorts of products. Hargreaves Lansdown itself, which manages $226.8 billion (£170 billion) in assets, nevertheless said it would still allow qualified investors to access new British crypto exchange-traded notes despite their warning.Bitcoin was trading above $115,000 on Monday, up 3.6% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. The price recovery follows a sharp dip on Friday, when it slid from $121,000 to $109,000 within hours, triggering nearly $20 billion in liquidations, including roughly $16.7 billion in long positions.

Cryptonews-Bitcoin ETFs Smash $1.19B Inflows Since July as BlackRock Leads — But Is a Correction Coming? BlackRock’s IBIT vacuumed roughly $970 million of the $1.19 billion single‑day haul, steering U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs toward $100 billion AUM.Hassan Shittu-October 7, 2025 4 min read

U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have recorded their strongest inflows in nearly three months, showing a renewed wave of institutional interest as Bitcoin traded near record highs.According to data from Farside Investors, Bitcoin ETFs attracted $1.19 billion in net inflows on Monday, the highest single-day total since July 10, when inflows reached $1.18 billion.BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) dominated the surge, accounting for more than 81% of total inflows with $970 million added in a single day. Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) followed with $112.3 million, while Bitwise’s BITB recorded $60.1 million.BlackRock’s IBIT Leads Record $6B Crypto ETF Inflows-The renewed appetite for Bitcoin exposure coincides with a major milestone for BlackRock’s IBIT, which has now overtaken some of the firm’s legacy funds to become its highest-revenue-generating ETF.Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted that IBIT is now “a hair away from $100 billion” in assets under management (AUM), just 21 months after launch.The fund currently manages $98.47 billion across 1.38 billion shares with a 0.25% fee, generating roughly $244 million in annual revenue for the world’s largest asset manager.Monday’s inflows also capped off a record week for Bitcoin-linked investment products. Data from CoinShares showed that digital asset funds globally attracted $5.95 billion last week, the largest weekly inflow on record.Source: CoinShares-Bitcoin accounted for $3.55 billion of that figure, while Ethereum saw $1.48 billion, followed by Solana and XRP with $706.5 million and $219.4 million, respectively.Bitcoin itself has been trading just below all-time highs, hovering around $124,500 on Tuesday after briefly crossing $126,000 earlier in the week. The latest surge came as institutional traders piled in over the weekend, sending Bitcoin past $125,000 for the first time since August.October has historically been one of Bitcoin’s stronger months, and the token is already up more than 10% since the start of the month.Data from SoSoValue shows that as of October 6, total cumulative net inflows into U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs reached $61.26 billion, with total assets under management now at $169.54 billion, representing about 6.8% of Bitcoin’s total market capit

Cryptocurrency decoded: Investing in digital assets-The Bid podcast

TRANSCRIPT: IC>> Oscar Pulido: Welcome to The Bid, where we break down what's happening in the markets and explore the forces changing the economy and finance. I'm your host, Oscar Pulido.Digital assets have become a fascinating and sometimes perplexing phenomenon in the financial landscape. Cryptocurrencies offer decentralized and borderless transactions challenging the long-established norms of the financial system. And the underlying blockchain technology not only ensures security, but also opens doors to innovative applications beyond currency- impacting industries from finance to supply chain. Robbie Mitchnick: The ability for the first time to have an asset that is truly global, that anyone with a mobile phone and internet connection can tap into. This asset, and the new access to financial opportunities that it creates in a permissionless way is really a significant breakthrough. Oscar Pulido: But cryptocurrencies receive their share of skepticism due to their volatile nature. So, what does the future hold for this asset class? Samara Cohen: This era of access and integration is what's here for Bitcoin now. So it's going to be critical to see how the integration of Bitcoin in capital markets catalyzes new strategies for investors and differentiated outcomes. Oscar Pulido: Today I'm joined by Robbie Mitchnick, head of Digital Assets at BlackRock and Samara Cohen, Chief Investment Officer of the ETF and Index Investments business at BlackRock. Robbie and Samara will lend their knowledge and experience to help us navigate the story of digital assets, from their inception to their current state and beyond. We'll explore the unique features that set digital assets apart and the potential they hold for investors seeking new opportunities in the ever-evolving financial market. Oscar Pulido: Robbie and Samara, welcome to The Bid. Robbie Mitchnick: Thanks for having me. Good to be back. Samara Cohen: Thanks for having us, Oscar. Oscar Pulido: I'm very excited to have you both because, I don't know if it's just me, but when we talk about this space, there's a lot of terminology that we use. We talk about digital assets, there's blockchain, there's crypto, there's Bitcoin, and I've needed to listen to a few of these conversations to make sense of how this all comes together. Robbie, maybe I could start with you, help us make sense of some of these concepts. Robbie Mitchnick: Sure. Digital assets as the starting point is the umbrella term for this space. And everything in digital assets is enabled by blockchain as the underlying technology. So, when we think about digital assets, I think that best way to think of its significance is with an analogy to the internet. That is that digital assets through blockchain makes possible for the movement of value, what the internet did for the movement of data multiple decades ago, a global, decentralized, accessible, real-time network.Then within digital assets, you've got really three buckets that we think of. One is crypto, the most famous -generates a lot of the headlines, you have 10,000 plus different crypto assets today of which Bitcoin is the original and remains today by far the largest with a striking share of market cap north of 50%. Second bucket, stable coins where you take the properties of digital assets of crypto in terms of ability to send them anywhere in the world in near real time, at near zero cost in a digitally native, transparent way, and strip out some of the intrinsic volatility that exists today for crypto assets to make them more useful as a payment asset.The third bucket, tokenized assets, the idea is you're taking real world assets or financial assets, and you're issuing the ownership record of those on a blockchain in digitally native format.Oscar Pulido: I love the analogy about digital assets, providing the ability of the movement of value, I think is what you said. The way the internet facilitated the movement of information. And thank you for that description. I think that helps categorize these various concepts. But if I'm an investor, what does this all actually mean? what part of what you mentioned actually matters to me as somebody looking at the markets. Robbie Mitchnick: Yeah. I think sometimes it's tempting to look at this and say, the applications of blockchain technology, maybe Bitcoin or crypto was first, but there's going to be so many vast applications of blockchain that those'll be irrelevant in the long arc of history. And I don't think that's quite correct, Bitcoin's been around for 15 years, the blockchain hype and institutional interest has been here for, let's say six, seven years. When we look at, what are the things that we couldn't solve before as a human society and economy or that we did, but we did them in a really inefficient way. Now through blockchain, we either solved that or we predominantly use blockchain to do it in a much more efficient way. The record so far is pretty thin, and the exceptions are really Bitcoin, Ethereum to some extent in a more early-stage way, and stable coins.  So, Bitcoin, why is it significant? I think it's a really complex question that's not well understood. The way to think about it is in three components, three problems that it solves, which are centuries old problems.And the first is payments and particularly cross-border payments or moving money across political jurisdictions. That has always been difficult. Domestic payments today actually pretty easy, pretty efficient. A lot of countries have real time digital payment networks. But cross border is another story altogether. And if we go back a millennia to what was a very pioneering system in the Middle East, the Hawala system. And that was how, money moved across longer distances in that time. And how it worked was you went to a broker, and you deposited something of value, they created a receipt that was then transmitted to another broker, let's say in the next village, who was connected to your broker. And they would pay out to some recipient something of value, and then the two brokers would periodically settle.It's an innovative system for the ninth century AD. But in fact, our cross-border payment system today looks a lot like that. If you're sending a wire or a money transmission, you're going to your bank or your money transmitter and you're depositing with them, and then they've got a relationship with their bank, and their bank has a relationship with the end recipient's bank, and at the end of it, someone at the other end gets their money, but in the process you incur significant fees and time delays and frictions, and so that has not modernized really in centuries. When we think about the introduction of Bitcoin and digital assets, this idea of being able to move a digitally native asset globally across borders in near real time at near zero cost, that's an amazing breakthrough. The second piece is when we think about the predominant form that money lives in today, Now, for most of our history, money was either a commodity itself or coinage that had a linkage to commodity, whether directly or through convertibility. Today the predominant form of money is as government issued fiat currency. And that has all kinds of benefits in terms of efficiency to settle transactions at scale and digital format. But what it doesn't have is security against arbitrary supply increases. And so, what we've seen throughout much of modern history is when fiscal challenges arise in a given country, there's this temptation to increase the supply to base currency and ultimately create inflation. Bitcoin with its rigidly fixed supply cap of 21 million units, 19.5 million of which are already in existence, has a totally different paradigm.And then finally, the ability for the first time to have an asset that is truly global, that anyone with a mobile phone and internet connection can tap into. There's people who have mobile phones but don't have bank accounts. So, this asset, and the new access to financial opportunities that it creates in a permissionless way is really a significant breakthrough. Oscar Pulido: So, you're saying that crypto, and you use Bitcoin as the prominent example, is modernizing the financial system. It's making it easier for cross-border payments and is making people think about the currency that they have in their pocket, that fiat currency, those bills, are not fixed in supply, they can't increase in supply. And in fact, we saw central bank responses over the course of many years do that in response to crises. Whereas cryptocurrencies are more fixed in supply, and therefore have a purchasing power that perhaps is more valuable. Let's talk more about cryptocurrency, which perhaps had a lot of critics, that this was a fad, and, to some extent that appeared to be the case at the end of 2022. But here we are again today with crypto and Bitcoin, really prominently in the headline. So, what's changed? Robbie Mitchnick: Actually, you allude to the major correction that happened in 2022, that was just one cycle in crypto's history. But there've been four. And if you put a price chart of them side by side, they look almost indistinguishable.So, Bitcoin's created in 2009, and then you have 2010, 2011, this spectacular parabolic rally when it goes from nothing to something. Then crash.2013 another parabolic rally. This time it enters the mainstream consciousness of a wider number of people. Ultimately that, cycle collapsed when Mount Gox, which was the leading crypto exchange at the time, imploded. Then you have this bear market for a while. 2017 arrives and crypto goes parabolic again, hits all-time highs, order magnitude above where it had ever been before. And now it started to enter not just mainstream investors, but big institutions are thinking about this, Again, that, rally collapses.Finally, the fourth cycle, which we saw starting in Covid, it was some flight to scarcity value of Bitcoin initially, but then it extended to other crypto assets, that too collapsed in 2022 with some excesses and other bad behavior.So, it's been this, rollercoaster journey, but when you look back at the long-term trajectory, each of these cycles, tend to be a multiple or even an order of magnitude or higher than the prior cycle. Oscar Pulido: So, these ups and downs are nothing new. And in fact, your timeline went back to the early 2010s, but we should expect volatility in this asset class. that gets me to think about investments and Samara, when we think about these digital assets and particularly cryptocurrencies, how should investors think about this relative to more traditional investments, things like stocks and bonds. Are there certain advantages they possess or are there certain challenges, or maybe it's a combination of both? Samara Cohen: Oscar, what I love about the framing that Robbie just gave us is that he not only just did a 14-year history of cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin specifically, but he actually went back a thousand years in talking about the history of money, which I love as a self-professed markets history nerd. And Robbie has laid out really well the vision for digital assets, they can be traded across borders in a transparent manner without intermediaries and that's the crux of what is the specific change in this new paradigm. And of course, these are markets that don't close, these are 24/7 markets. so that's the vision. Now let's speak to the actual practice of investing in Bitcoin.When you look to invest in and own Bitcoin directly, as an investor, you're engaging with an entirely new ecosystem. You have to take a more direct role in vendor selection, in onboarding, you need to understand custody and also the differences in tax management. This is a big education curve, and it introduces, complexity as well as potentially trading and operational costs.So that's the state of play for investors who are, alongside their, asset classes and markets they have traditionally been invested, in looking to overlay bitcoin strategies. Now the attributes of digital assets that we've talked about are actually particularly appealing to millennial and Gen Z investors who, over the past several years, are becoming much more predominant in the investing world. And that's an important part of what's happening in market structure around the world and what's happening in crypto. Both of these generations are digital natives, they grew up with the internet, they're comfortable transacting their lives in an increasingly borderless space. And they are more likely to own crypto than mutual funds, equities, or ETFs. And as Robbie spoke about, this trend of engaging in Bitcoin has been spreading to institutional investors as well with a number of them, adding Bitcoin as an asset class alongside others in their portfolios. So, the moment right now, and I love Robbie's layout of the four eras of Bitcoin because I think this era is really around integration and access with the availability of access technologies like ETFs. Oscar Pulido: It sounds like it won't just be the millennials and Gen Z investors that are thinking about crypto, but that it could broaden out to a broader swath of investors. So are there certain developments in the regulatory landscape that have created more legitimacy or acceptance for digital assets that you've seen or that you foresee happening? Samara Cohen: Yeah, this is important to talk about because evolution in the regulatory atmosphere has not only enabled the rise of digital assets, but where it goes from here is going to be critical to the path forward. I do want to make the point though, Oscar, to what you said about institutional investors alongside the Gen Z millennial investors. Putting crypto to the side, a huge topic in markets around the world is how market structure is adapting to self-directed retail investors. And that is true, across asset classes with platforms and a huge part of market structure regulation generally. Looking at equity markets, through the lens of how they are accessed directly by investors, is really guiding policymakers around the world in traditional finance as well.Now policymakers are starting to make moves to develop frameworks around Bitcoin, and the reason they're doing it is because they see the increase in interest in investors and also the evolution in infrastructure across the industry. We see countries broadly focused on how to bring crypto markets into compliance by creating frameworks, which is what they do, and what they're supposed to do for all parts of the financial system and all parts of emerging technologies.The European Union will actually be the first major jurisdiction with a comprehensive crypto framework. The Markets and Crypto Assets licensing regime, and that takes effect at year end 2024. In the US there have been efforts in Congress on a bipartisan basis to create measures aimed at regulating and providing greater market structure to the digital asset industry, those measures have progress that needs to be made. I will say in my own engagement in the industry and with US policy makers, I think the drive to ensure the US is competitive in this space, is going to accelerate and make sure we progress. Oscar Pulido: Samara, it sounds like what you're saying is that regulators are working to put frameworks in place that give investors some comfort that there are guardrails in place, so that if they want to incorporate Bitcoin and digital assets into their portfolio, they can do so in a more confident manner. And Robbie, I think Samara alluded to this, you mentioned blockchain technology, it has wider application, that it's the foundation for, digital currencies, but it has other ways in which it can be applied. So maybe talk about, where are we there? Robbie Mitchnick: It's fun that we get to do this together because you were one of the original believers in this Samara. I remember, sitting in your office on a Friday afternoon in October of 2018. And you were so dialed in to what this was, and you were newer to the technology at the time, but thinking about what this could mean for ETF markets, and I remember walking out of that thinking, this is going to be a thing here,Samara Cohen: And I'm just sad you didn't bring up your thousand-year history of money, Robbie, because I think we would've gotten here faster!Robbie Mitchnick: Or, you might've said, that guy's crazy and I would've been, looking for another job. But, when we think about going beyond crypto and I mentioned in the sort of three-part framework at the top for digital assets of crypto, stable coins and tokenized assets. And tokenized assets is how I would answer that question where, there's a lot of interest and, hype around, the potential to take this technology and apply it to existing assets, whether they be financial or physical assets- we could be talking about stocks, bonds, commodities like gold, real estate, art, you name it. And take the properties of blockchain and what it enables in terms of transparency and efficient settlement and, borderlessness and being digitally native and programmable, all these things and modernize how our financial system works and modernize access to, maybe asset classes that weren't easy or efficient for many investors to get access to. And so, I think this is a transformation that is going to take time. This is not a three-year transformation. This is 10, maybe 15, maybe 20 years, but if it happens, it'll be the biggest transformation in our securities market since we moved from paper-based share trading in the 1970s to electronic records. Oscar Pulido: And the reason it takes that long, the 10, 15, 20 years, is just that financial markets are complex and there's a way in which things are done that takes a long time to unwind. Robbie, I think I've also heard you talk about the issue of property rights and how tokenized assets strengthen this issue of property rights over digital assets. So maybe talk a little bit about that. Robbie Mitchnick: Yeah, one of the breakthroughs of Bitcoin that then, applies, in other digital assets is, historically it's been very difficult to create a form of property, a form of value that cannot be seized by force.  Again, go back centuries or millennia, property, whether that was at risk of seizure by an invading army, or by a hostile or authoritarian government. Now for the first time, you have this idea that your wealth can fit on effectively a USB key as stored in your pocket, or even be memorized in your head. We're talking about private key that gives you access to your Bitcoin. that's an amazing breakthrough,Oscar Pulido: So, Samara, what advancements do you see taking place in the digital asset space that investors should be mindful of? What do you think that's going to mean in terms of the investment decisions that investors need to make going forward? Samara Cohen: I have to say, the private key, comment is a great example of when we talk about the practical applications and what's new for investors here, like having to memorize seed phrase is very stressful for investors. And so, figuring out how you want to engage and whether that's how you want to own your crypto, that's a perfect example of what it means to actually have to adopt to a new ecosystem.  For all of the reasons that we've talked about, self-directed investors, we know we see it, this is a huge topic for policy makers, they are interested in gaining access to digital assets broadly, to Bitcoin specifically in a way that's convenient and efficient and secure. Importantly, crypto is also becoming a topic for the whole wealth industry and for financial advisors. And then we're starting to think about crypto in a whole portfolio context, this brings me back to this idea of the era of access and integration. What are the ways to integrate crypto into a broader portfolio? And then the significance of the application of existing and familiar technologies like ETF technology to spot Bitcoin? The use of ETF technology, which is now becoming predominant, in multiple jurisdictions allow investors more access to Bitcoin in a whole portfolio way. So, they can see the integration of risk, they can manage their portfolios holistically. And that's a very significant aspect of what this kind of next phase will be.And I will also add with respect to whether it takes, years, decades, millennia for market structure to change. We know a few things, like really what moves market structure forward are two things, it's what technology enables and this inexorable march towards more access and more transparency, which investors always want. Competing with that are, entrenched interests often, which can, slow things down. And then as you talked about before, the ability of policy and regulatory frameworks to adapt in a way that supports the new ecosystem.This era of access and integration is what's here for Bitcoin now. So, it's going to be critical to see how the integration of Bitcoin in capital markets catalyzes new strategies for investors and differentiated outcomes. Oscar Pulido: It sounds like both of you have a front row seat to the modernization of, financial markets. So, thank you for sharing that with me today, I feel like I've got a little more information on this topic, but I know there's probably more to learn, so we'll look forward to welcoming you both back at some point on The Bid. Robbie and Samara, thank you for joining us on the podcast. Robbie Mitchnick: Thanks for having us. Samara Cohen: Thanks for having us. Oscar.Oscar Pulido: Thanks for listening. to this episode of The Bid. Next week, be sure to tune in and check out my conversation with Jeff Spiegel, where he'll provide a holistic overview of major investment themes to help investors navigate the year ahead. 

<<SPOKEN DISCLOSURES>> This content is for informational purposes only and is not an offer or a solicitation. Reliance upon information in this material is at the sole discretion of the listener.For full disclosures go to Blackrock.com/corporate/compliance/bid-disclosures -MKTGSH0124U/M-3290789-What does the future hold for cryptocurrency and how should investors be considering digital assets as part of a portfolio? Robbie Mitchnick, Head of Digital Assets, and Samara Cohen, Chief Investment Officer of the ETF and Index Investments business at BlackRock lend their knowledge and experience to navigate the story of digital assets.The iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF is not an investment company registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, and therefore is not subject to the same regulatory requirements as mutual funds or ETFs registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940.
Need to learn more before you make investment decisions?