BlackRock C.E.O. Calls Bitcoin an ‘Asset of Fear’

“Bitcoin is an asset of fear. And when you’re less fearful, like we had a trade agreement with China, you saw a shift downward. There are conversations this week that there may be some type of settlement in Ukraine. Bitcoin fell a little bit. So you own Bitcoin because you’re frightened of your physical security. You own it because you’re frightened of your financial security. The long-term fundamental reason you own it because the debasement of financial assets, because of deficits. And so to me, even the movement in the last week — and we’ve had about a 20, 25 percent drawdown, and this is the third time since IBIT was created, our E.T.F. And so this is — you see these shifts and they’re actually pretty non-correlated shifts. And that’s — and so the role —” “But then some people say is that really insurance? Right, if you had bought it at $125,000 and it’s now sitting at 90 some-odd thousand dollars, you’re saying —” “If you bought it for a trade, it’s a very volatile asset, you’re going to have to be really good at market timing, which most people aren’t. If you’re buying it as a hedge against all your hope, then it has a meaningful impact on a portfolio. The bigger, the other big problem of Bitcoin is, it is still heavily influenced by leveraged players.”