The US dollar risks losing the status of the world’s reserve currency to digital assets like
Bitcoin
, said
BlackRock
CEO and chairman Larry Fink.
Fink
made the remark
in the chairman’s annual letter to investors.
Fink wrote in the letter that the U.S. has benefited from its national currency’s status as the world’s reserve currency for decades. However, it’s “not guaranteed to last forever” as the national debt has grown at three times the pace of GDP since 1989. He further claimed that mandatory government spending and debt service will consume all federal revenue by 2030, creating a permanent deficit.
If the U.S. doesn’t get its debt and deficit under control, the USD could lose its world’s reserve currency status to Bitcoin, Fink added.
While decentralized finance is an “extraordinary innovation” that makes markets faster, cheaper, and transparent, it could undermine America's economic advantage if investors begin seeing Bitcoin as a “safer bet” than the USD, warned Fink.
Fink also highlighted the success of BlackRock’s Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). A spot Bitcoin ETF is an investment fund that tracks the price of Bitcoin. Its shares are traded on traditional stock exchanges.
Notably, BlackRock is not only the world’s largest asset manager but is also the largest issuer of spot Bitcoin ETFs. As of March 28, BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETFs held $48 billion in assets under management
as per SoSoValue
.
It is one of the largest institutional investments in cryptocurrency so far. In fact, BlackRock’s traditional funds have also
reported owning
the firm’s Bitcoin ETFs.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin was trading at $83,560.55 at press time as per
Kraken’s price feeds
.