- 29 March 2022
- Posted by: Cryptovalues
- Category: Cryptovalues News
The world is changing and the conflict has reaffirmed this truth. If it is Larry Fink, CEO and chairman of BlackRock – one of the world’s most important fund managers, with shares in practically all the world’s largest listed companies – who speaks and reports his thoughts, we can only take note.
According to Fink, the war and the severe economic sanctions on Russia have “put an end to the globalisation we have experienced over the last three decades” and about the move to freeze Russia’s foreign exchange reserves, he said it represents an “unprecedented step” that has led to Russia being cut off from global capital markets.
The conflict between Ukraine and Russia has also been a great showcase for Bitcoin and this will act as a major boost for the entire sector, which has benefited from the obvious usefulness shown by cryptocurrencies at a time of great difficulty in accessing the classic banking system, as well as what has happened instead in terms of blocking access to SWIFT and freezing foreign reserves against Russia.
A direct consequence of the situation, Fink wrote, is that more countries will look closely at the way their currencies operate, and this will include a reassessment of the extent to which they rely on other countries.
The result of such an assessment is likely to be an accelerated development of digital currencies.
The ‘uncertainty’ of Swift and the insecurity of having their own currency reserves abroad will lead many countries to look for alternatives, and Russian MP Navalny’s idea of charging for gas in Bitcoin points in this direction. This is the first time that something other than the US dollar is being considered.
Furthermore, Fink made it clear that digital currencies are an area of interest for his own company. He said BlackRock is seeing “growing interest” from its clients and in February unveiled an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that focuses on blockchain technology and represents an index of companies involved in the “development, innovation and use of blockchain and crypto technologies.
BlackRock also owns 16.3% of MicroStrategy, a company famous for its massive investment in Bitcoin.
