On October 15, Bloomberg's senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas posted on social media that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said in the third-quarter earnings call: "First, I'm not sure the president or any other candidate will make a difference. I do believe the use of digital assets globally will become more of a reality. We have dialogues with global institutions on how they should think about digital assets, how they should allocate. We view BAL itself as an asset class, an alternative to other commodities like gold. So I think the application of this investment form will expand, and the role of AR as a blockchain is likely to grow significantly. If we can create more acceptability, more transparency, and analytical tools around these assets, they will expand further.
But I really don't think it's all about the regulation. I think it's about liquidity, transparency, and the development that comes through that process. Just like many years ago, we started building the mortgage-backed securities market or the high-yield bond market, it started very slowly, but as we built better analytical tools and data, those markets became more accepted and expanded. I'm confident we'll see the expansion of the digital asset market.
Then we'll see how different countries view their own digital currencies. That's a very different class of assets from BAL itself. But I do believe, as we build better analytical tools, we'll see the expansion of this market. The regulatory issues will come along, like how do we think about the role of a digitized dollar? That's a very different issue from assets like BAL, but all of these will be part of the discussion.
We've seen success in other countries, like India and Brazil, for different reasons digitizing their currencies. We believe these blockchain technologies will be very value-additive. Then you'll see the overlay of AI, and as we get better data analytics tools, the applicability and expansion of these markets will be realized."
