Former Barclays CEO says he ‘loves’ seeing BlackRock concerned in crypto

Bob Diamond, a former CEO of Barclays, commented on BlackRock’s latest crypto actions throughout a CNBC interview on June 21.

Diamond, now the CEO of Atlas Service provider Capital, mentioned:

“I really like seeing a number of the extra mainstream corporations getting concerned right here like BlackRock…I’m not shocked that they’re extra concerned now in crypto extra broadly.”

BlackRock recently filed for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). If it succeeds, will probably be the primary firm within the U.S. to supply such an funding.

Nonetheless, BlackRock’s crypto actions should not restricted to that submitting. Diamond famous that one in every of his corporations and BlackRock each beforehand invested within the USDC agency Circle.

BlackRock took half in an April 2022 funding spherical by which Circle raised $400 million. Diamond’s present agency, Atlas, was not named as an investor in that press launch, and as such, the capability wherein Diamond and his corporations invested is unclear.

Diamond feedback on crypto business

Diamond additionally commented on the crypto market extra broadly. He mentioned:

“Crypto is a broad time period, however if you happen to slender it all the way down to the digitization of a lot of what we’re doing it’s a pure course.”

He argued that the cryptocurrency business ought to cease avoiding regulation, including that cooperation with regulators will enchantment to the banking business. He mentioned that “robust banks need robust regulation.” He mentioned that readability is required for crypto to have a optimistic influence.

Although Diamond didn’t title any corporations which can be scuffling with rules, two main crypto exchanges, Coinbase and Binance had been confronted with fees from the U.S. Securities and Change Fee (SEC) in June. Each corporations mentioned that that they had tried to work with regulators however got no means to register.

Diamond mentioned that he has not bought Bitcoin (BTC). Nonetheless, he mentioned that his associate at Atlas Service provider Capital, David Schamis, has invested.

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