The BlackRock logo is seen outside of its offices in New York January 18, 2012. Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
Kraken's subsidiary CF Benchmarks will work with BlackRock on its Bitcoin offering. BlackRock launched its own private Bitcoin trust in August after announcing a partnership with Coinbase.
BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, will use the Kraken CF Benchmarks Bitcoin index evaluation product for its first crypto offering, the latter company's CEO Sui Chung told The Block. This comes as BlackRock last month announced a deal with Coinbase to offer institutional investors access to cryptocurrencies and then said it had set up a private trust offering access to spot Bitcoin to U.S. institutional clients.
CF Benchmarks is trying to be the MSCI index of the crypto world as interest and demand continue to grow despite falling crypto asset prices. CF Benchmarks is a member of the Crypto Facilities group of companies, a member of the Payward group of companies. Payward is the owner and operator of crypto exchange Kraken Exchange, one of the oldest such platforms.
Chung noted the increasing interest institutions have demonstrated over the past couple of months, compared to even six months ago. “The understanding of digital assets themselves is much greater than it was, people we talk to now understand the difference between bitcoin and ether,” Chung said. People no longer lump Bitcoin and ether into the same bucket and are more aware of the fundamentals of the assets.
According to Chang, an agreement with BlackRock has been in the works since 2021. He also said that they would not launch a product if there was no demand for it. Firms like BlackRock do not do this sort of thing as a “kite flying exercise, because let’s face it, it’s not a decision that carries no risk.”
© 2022, Eva Fox | Tesmanian. All rights reserved.
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About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
