Note that at one time Larry Fink viewed Bitcoin negatively, calling it an “index of money laundering”. However, as early as August 2022, BlackRock launched a spot private BTC trust for its own institutional investors, i.e., large clients.

At the time, BlackRock representatives noted that capital owners were still showing interest in digital assets. This is happening despite the market crash, among other things.

BlackRock office

Who’s backing cryptocurrencies

According to Decrypt’s sources, transactions with a tokenised asset could be conducted much faster and its entire transaction history could be displayed on a blockchain. This is a revolutionary new way of doing business across markets that could revolutionise the world of finance. But Fink is confident that such a global change would not harm BlackRock’s business model.

On the other hand, the failing FTX exchange should not have created its own FTT token; Fink sees it as the reason for the disaster. To recap, after the balance sheet of trading firm Alameda Research was leaked online with a huge amount of FTT tokens with low liquidity, Binance chief Changpen Zhao announced the sale of FTT from his exchange’s reserves. This was the latest blow to the platform, which was indeed having problems even months before it officially went bankrupt.

That said, we do not agree with this comment from Larry Fink. In this case, he suggests that the FTT token was the cause of the collapse, but in fact the cause of the FTX crypto exchange's death and coin market crash was the actions of platform founder Sam Bankman-Friede. As it turned out after the exchange filed for bankruptcy, FTX users' money was used for the needs of the trading company Alameda, which was also founded by Bachmann-Fried. However, the users did not, of course, give their consent to this.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink

According to Fink, BlackRock has invested about $24 million in FTX. It’s unclear if the company will be able to recoup that money, but even losing it will have little effect on the business: after all, BlackRock manages trillions of dollars in capital.

😈 YOU CAN FIND MORE INTERESTING INFORMATION ON YANDEX.ZEN!

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried himself attended the event virtually, which we covered today. He was interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin, popular journalist, CNBC presenter and author of a story about the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank and the 2008 financial crisis called “Too Big To Fail”. Sorkin’s first question is whether Bankman-Fried’s lawyers allowed him to be interviewed. Here’s what Sam answered.

No. They were against it, but it’s my duty to tell everything.

Expectedly, the mere fact of Bankman-Friede’s name being on the list of speakers – albeit virtual ones – sparked a strong reaction in the cryptocurrency community. Here’s what a user nicknamed CarlBMenger tweeted about it.

Sam Bunkman-Fried should be in jail, but right now he’s being interviewed at a summit hosted by the New York Times. What the hell is going on?

FTX Arena

Another username has posted a slightly edited guest list for the event. As well as Sam, it allegedly includes Thanos, Jeffrey Epstein, Mao Tse Tung and Osama Bin Laden.

The real list of attendees at the event

Crypto-enthusiasts also liked Sam’s excuses about the collapse of the exchange – here’s user Tony Battista’s tweet.

Sam Bunkman-Fried is one of the brightest people in the world. His excuse? He didn’t understand all the risk.

User Kieran Flanagan drew parallels with Bernie Madoff, the founder of a major financial scam that came to light during the 2008 financial crisis. Here’s his line.

I remember when Bernie Madoff was caught and then gave that non-stressful interview to the New York Times while he himself was relaxing on the beach… Ah, wait, of course that didn’t happen.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bunkman-Fried

Most people’s message is clear: Bankman-Fried led one of the biggest disasters of the crypto market, and there’s no way to justify him. Right now he should be under arrest by now, not giving interviews, trying to generate regret or sympathy for anyone.


We think the BlackRock executive's support for asset tokenisation is good news for the cryptocurrency industry. It makes it clear that the benefits of blockchain-based digital assets are recognised by many. And if tokenisation does gain traction in other areas, the benefits of crypto will be even more apparent.

What do you think about this? Share your opinion in our Millionaire Crypto Chat. There we will discuss other important developments in the blockchain world.