Asset manager BlackRock ‘is starting to dabble’ in Bitcoin market

Leading money-management firm BlackRock, which has over $6.5 trillion in assets under management revealed its approach to Bitcoin. According to Rick Rieder, chief investment officer at BlackRock, the asset manager “is starting to dabble” in the BTC market.

In a recent interview at CNBC Squawk Box, the CIO was of the opinion that the technology around cryptocurrency and the regulation surrounding the assets have evolved. This made a number of people think that Bitcoin “should be part of the portfolio.” Rieder believed that this in particular was “driving the price up.”

As Rieder suggested in the interview, BlackRock is not yet recommending anything specific with regard to Bitcoin. However, as people now hold more cash, adding some portion of Bitcoin to their portfolio “seems to make some sense.” 

However, he does not believe that everyone should necessarily allocate one percent of their assets to the digital currency and said: 

I wouldn’t put a number on the percentage allocation one should have, it depends on what the rest of your portfolio looks like.

Last month, CEO of BlackRock, Laurence “Larry” Fink, stated that the Bitcoin market was comparatively still very small. According to Fink, the digital currency was still untested and has not been proven yet, in terms of viability. 

At press time, Bitcoin was trading at $51,081 with a 24-hour trading volume of $67,000,278,850. BTC price has been up by 0.5% and 4% in the hourly and daily time frames, respectively.