BlackRock’s Larry Fink says bitcoin ETFs are just the first step in the technological revolution of finance

Bitcoin ETFs have arrived after a hard fought battle between the crypto industry and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock — the biggest asset manager in the world — thinks it's just the first step toward a new financial world.

ETFs, or exchange-traded funds, were seen as a way to give investors exposure to a young and risky asset class. But the value blockchain technology provides goes beyond bitcoin, and the new ETFs are just a precursor to broader tokenization of other assets, Fink told Our's "Squawk Box" on Friday.

"ETFs are step one in the technological revolution in the financial markets," he said. "Step two is going to be the tokenization of every financial asset."

Before BlackRock filed its application for a bitcoin ETF in June and created a groundswell of optimism that such a fund could become a reality, tokenization of real world assets like gold had been revived as a hot topic among financial institutions, who claimed this would give institutions the ability to provide more information and data to clients about their investments.

Some see bitcoin as the beginning of a bigger push by crypto into the legacy financial system. After the approval of bitcoin ETFs, investors are looking forward to the first deadline for the SEC to approve of deny spot ether ETFs, which is scheduled for May.

Fink appeared more focused on the deployment of blockchain technology to upgrade existing systems. Although some financial heavyhitters like BlackRock have warmed to bitcoin over the years and the idea of offering bitcoin exposure to clients, there's a big crypto world beyond bitcoin that many will continue to remain cautious on, at least publicly.

"I see value in having an ETH ETF," he said. "As I said, these are just start stepping stones towards tokenization."

"We have the technology to tokenize today," he added. "If you had a tokenized security … the moment you buy or sell an instrument it's known it's on a general ledger that is all created together. … This eliminates all corruption, having a tokenized system."

Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.