TradFi shifts perspectives on crypto assets

cointelegraph.com:

Recently, Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock asset management fund, talked about crypto in an interview on CNBC. He said that crypto “has a differentiating value versus other asset classes, but more importantly, because it’s so international, it’s going to transcend any one currency.”

BlackRock is now the world’s largest asset management fund, with over $9 trillion in assets. Fink himself was a crypto and Bitcoin skeptic as recently as 2017 when he was quoted as saying that Bitcoin was simply an “index for money laundering.” He was insinuating that the more people who wanted to launder money (they would use Bitcoin), the more the price would shoot up. 

But fast forward to mid-2023 and he and others in TradFi are now singing a different tune. Not only that, but he sees crypto’s potential to democratize investing. Right now, in this age of artificial intelligence, we still have rules where only accredited investors with several hundred thousand dollars are allowed to invest in certain asset classes for their protection.

The 2017 view of Fink was pretty much in the same mold as the pronouncements of Warren Buffett, Jaime Dimon, Elizabeth Warren and even Bill Gates. What these people have in common is that they are mainly from the Baby Boomer or Gen-X generation. This is significant because a lot of us who grew up during those post-World War II years often associate assets or things of value we can hold on to and sell for a higher price, with things that we can hold in our hand or physically touch. Assets to us include cars, houses, fine art, jewelry, precious metals and collectibles like watches, stamps, coins, etc. 

Although bonds and stocks are now digital, many in the older crowd still associate those with the paper