BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has expressed optimism about the company’s plan to launch a spot Ethereum ETF in the United States. This comes after the successful debut of the company’s new spot Bitcoin ETF product, IBIT. Fink sees value in the move, stating that these are stepping stones towards tokenization.

On Thursday, the trading volume of BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF (IBIT) surpassed BITO’s $1 billion first-day bitcoin futures ETF volume in 2021. Fink believes that this is the direction the company and the industry at large are heading.

However, Fink does not see cryptocurrencies as a currency but rather as an asset class. He compared it to gold, stating that it’s no different than what gold represented over thousands of years. He also noted that unlike gold, the amount of bitcoin that can be created is almost at its ceiling.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, applied for a spot Ethereum ETF to the Securities and Exchange Commission in November of last year. This was five months after it filed for a spot Bitcoin ETF in June. The company has named this new trust the iShares Ethereum Trust, following in the footsteps of its pick of Coinbase Custody as the custodian for its proposed spot Ethereum ETF.

According to a recent estimate by Bloomberg ETF expert Eric Balchunas, the SEC is expected to approve spot Ethereum ETF funds 70% of the time. The agency’s first final decision on an application from Ark and 21Shares is due on May 23.

This News Article was automatically generated by Bob the Bot (AI)

Information	Details
Geography	North America
Countries	🇺🇸
Sentiment	positive
Relevance Score	1
People	Eric Balchunas, Larry Fink
Companies	Bloomberg, Securities and Exchange Commission, BlackRock, CNBC, Coinbase Custody
Currencies	Bitcoin, Ethereum
Securities	None