Financial Empire BlackRock’s Cryptocurrency Ambitions
News about “BlackRock IBIT’s inflow this year surpassing that of the world’s largest gold fund” has coincided with Bitcoin’s return to $100,000 on May 8, drawing market attention.
The Bitcoin ETF has taken up the mantle from the crypto community, making Wall Street an important buyer of Bitcoin, propelling what was once a fringe asset into mainstream and regulatory acceptance, thus becoming a key piece in BlackRock’s global financial landscape.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management company, manages assets totaling up to $11.5 trillion. However, this “ostensible asset management giant” has long since transcended the role of merely being an asset manager. Known as a “shadow central bank,” BlackRock is deeply involved in shaping global capital flows, influencing policy directions, and constructing systemic financial instruments. ps-s49265
From IBIT to BUIDL: BlackRock’s On-chain Layout
Within the order of traditional finance, BlackRock has long been a player that controls the rules of the game. Now, this financial behemoth is quietly bridging the value gap between traditional capital and digital assets, attempting to reconstruct the future financial order.
One of the core unresolved issues in the crypto market over the past decade has been “when will the U.S. SEC approve a Bitcoin spot ETF.” To this end, dozens of institutions have come and gone, but repeatedly hit walls. Until June 2023, BlackRock officially submitted its Bitcoin spot ETF application, which was not just a piece of paperwork but a catalyst for market confidence. The market quickly realized: when even BlackRock aligns with Bitcoin, regulatory approval is merely a matter of time.
In January 2024, the SEC officially approved multiple Bitcoin spot ETFs, including BlackRock IBIT. This event not only became a “watershed for Bitcoin’s compliance” but also signified a redistribution of narrative power: BlackRock introduced Bitcoin to the legitimate stage of mainstream finance with its ETF.
After IBIT went live, it rapidly attracted a massive influx of institutional funds, not only ending Grayscale GBTC’s monopoly position in Bitcoin exposure but also surpassing the world’s largest gold ETF GLD in capital inflows.
According to public data, from the beginning of this year to date, IBIT has garnered approximately $6.97 billion in net inflows, exceeding GLD’s $6.29 billion in the same period. Despite Bitcoin’s price increase of only 1.4%, gold rose by 24.9%, yet funds surged into IBIT, demonstrating the market’s high recognition of its long-term allocation value.
Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted that the continued capital inflow during times of price weakness confirms Bitcoin’s asset allocation value as “digital gold,” predicting that BTC ETFs will reach three times the scale of gold ETFs in 3-5 years. Strategy Chairman Michael Saylor boldly predicts that BlackRock IBIT will become the world’s largest ETF within ten years.
However, IBIT is merely the starting point in BlackRock’s larger vision. Rather than saying BlackRock is promoting an ETF, it is better to say that it is reconstructing a new financial infrastructure centered around tokenization.
BUIDL: The Tokenized Money Market Fund
In March 2024, BlackRock launched the tokenized money market fund BUIDL, becoming its first fully on-chain traditional asset fund. By May 2025, BUIDL’s Total Value Locked (TVL) had exceeded $2.8 billion, firmly securing its position as the leader in the global RWA sector, far ahead of competitors like WisdomTree and Franklin Templeton. This also signifies that BUIDL is no longer an experimental project but a market-validated reality.
Furthermore, BlackRock has recently applied to establish DLT Shares and announced the completion of on-chain mapping for $150 billion in assets, covering diversified fields such as real estate trusts and commodities. This case not only marks RWA’s entry into commercialization and scaling but also transitions on-chain finance from marginal experimentation to an extension of traditional capital markets.
The Comeback of Wall Street’s Underdogs
Everything may trace back to an office in Manhattan in 1986.
That year, Larry Fink was a hotshot trader on Wall Street and the youngest managing director in the history of First Boston, leading the most cutting-edge financial innovation at the time—mortgage-backed securities (CMO). However, a misstep in interest rate betting caused his company to lose over $100 million, plunging his career into a low point. Yet this financial Waterloo ignited a profound reflection on risk management, planting the seeds for BlackRock’s future rise.
Two years later, Larry Fink, along with several former comrades, founded BlackRock Financial Management with support from Blackstone Group, which is also the precursor to BlackRock, starting with just $5 million in capital. Unlike the high-frequency trading and speculative arbitrage trends that swept Wall Street at the time, Larry Fink centered his philosophy on risk management. This principle later became the underlying logic and moat that enabled BlackRock to sweep across the global asset management industry.
Leveraging deep insights into the fixed income market and an innovative asset management model, BlackRock quickly rose to prominence. By the end of 1994, BlackRock’s assets under management (AUM) surged from $1.2 billion at inception to $53 billion, and in the same year, it officially separated from Blackstone Group, independently rebranding as “BlackRock,” marking the beginning of true global expansion.
What solidified BlackRock’s core moat was not just the scale of capital but also its groundbreaking financial risk analysis platform—the Aladdin system. This risk control and asset allocation analysis platform has been hailed as the “super brain” of global capital markets, executing over 5,000 portfolio stress tests daily and calculating 180 million options adjustments weekly, generating up to $1.4 billion in revenue for BlackRock in 2022 alone.
Moreover, Aladdin has become a vital financial infrastructure worldwide, with over 200 large financial institutions, including UBS, Deutsche Bank, the Swiss National Bank, and even the Federal Reserve, utilizing Aladdin for risk control and asset allocation management, serving assets exceeding $20 trillion, nearly equivalent to one-fifth of global GDP. In a sense, BlackRock’s influence has transcended the traditional definition of an asset manager, acting as a “predictor” of global market sentiment and capital flows.
Furthermore, BlackRock has also gained the power of discourse over global capital allocation through its ETF business. After the collapse of the real estate bubble in 2008, the market urgently needed an investment tool with high transparency, low cost, and strong liquidity, leading ETFs to quickly become an essential choice for both institutional and retail investors pursuing risk diversification and asset allocation efficiency. Subsequently, in 2009, BlackRock acquired Barclays Global Investors (BGI) for $13.5 billion, gaining the world’s largest indexed fund brand, iShares ETF.
ETFs are not just passive investment tools but also channels for international capital allocation power. Those who can be included in an index can gain liquidity, and BlackRock has become the creator and referee of this global capital game. According to official disclosures, the iShares ETF asset scale has reached $3.3 trillion, managing over 1,400 ETFs, nearly covering all major global markets. Through ETFs, BlackRock has gradually infiltrated the shareholder structure of almost every large listed company in the United States. According to 2023 data, the three major index fund giants, including BlackRock, are the largest single shareholders of over 90% of the S&P 500 index companies, becoming the “invisible hand” in the equity structure of American enterprises.
“Revolving Door”: BlackRock’s Secret Weapon in Capital Games
What truly brought BlackRock into the global public eye was its role as a “behind-the-scenes central bank” during various financial crises. Especially during the 2008 global financial crisis, as Lehman Brothers collapsed and AIG teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, the entire financial system was in jeopardy. The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve urgently needed an external professional institution that understood asset pricing and could manage the clearing process. BlackRock took on this hot potato, assisting not only in clearing bad assets but also helping the Federal Reserve design the largest asset rescue plan in history, TARP.
Since then, BlackRock’s role has evolved from merely being a player in the market to becoming a bridge for policy execution. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, as global markets plummeted again, the Federal Reserve called upon this “old friend,” and unprecedentedly intervened in the market directly through ETFs, with the iShares series of funds executing this action. Critics have deemed this relationship as “too cozy” between BlackRock and the U.S. government. It can be said that BlackRock is both a private giant in the market and a trusted policy execution tool of the government.
Behind this lies a more secretive system: the revolving door.
In the past, many of BlackRock’s senior managers took up key positions in government agencies such as the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve after leaving their posts, while some officials who previously served in the U.S. government would join BlackRock after stepping down. This intertwining of political and business relationships often implies a pre-emptive advantage under conditions of information asymmetry, providing BlackRock with a unique advantage in its strategic layout on the global stage.
Today, BlackRock’s reach has long extended beyond the financial sector. In recent years, it has continued to invest in major economic arteries such as energy, data, healthcare, logistics, and even ports. Recently, BlackRock also plans to acquire 43 port projects from Li Ka-shing’s CK Hutchison for $22.8 billion. If the deal goes through, BlackRock will become one of the largest practical controllers of the global port network, involving over 100 key nodes, thus having a more profound impact on the global economic operation. According to the Wall Street Journal, such transactions have even received tacit approval and support from the U.S. government. In other words, BlackRock is no longer just a market participant but an executor of great power geopolitical games.
The story of BlackRock is not merely a success story on Wall Street but a real-life textbook on how capital permeates power, shapes market rules, and influences the future in the era of globalization. It does not create news but establishes rules; it does not directly govern but influences fiscal policies; it does not own companies but is the largest shareholder behind almost all companies. The existence of this invisible giant has already permeated every corner of our lives.
Because of its high sensitivity to global financial dynamics and systemic influence, BlackRock was the first to perceive the structural changes brought about by crypto assets. “If the U.S. cannot control the ever-expanding debt and fiscal deficit, the dollar’s long-maintained status as ‘the global reserve currency’ may ultimately give way to emerging digital assets such as Bitcoin,” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink candidly stated in a 27-page letter to investors in 2025, mentioning that tokenization is becoming the key force in reshaping financial infrastructure. If SWIFT is postal service, then tokenization is the email itself—assets can circulate directly and instantaneously, bypassing all intermediaries. Tokenization will make investment and returns more “democratized.” This may not be the CEO’s bold speculation but a calm judgment about the future financial sovereignty landscape.
In the on-chain world, BlackRock is attempting to dominate not only liquidity but also the establishment of standards, the construction of infrastructure, and the connection to regulation. As history has consistently shown, BlackRock’s intent has never been limited to “how much asset to invest” but whether it can set the rules for the next generation of finance.
This article is collaboratively reprinted from: PANews