A filing from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows BlackRock Financial Management’s Bitcoin futures contracts have appreciated significantly this year.
According to BlackRock’s monthly portfolio investments report released by the SEC today, the firm held 37 Bitcoin futures contracts issued through the Chicago Mercantile Exchange which expired on March 26. The contracts appreciated by $360,457.
The gains from the Bitcoin (BTC) futures represent roughly 0.00142% of BlackRock’s Global Allocation Fund, or 6.12 BTC at the time of publication. The company holds more than $8.6 trillion in total assets under management.
Last month, the firm’s chief investment officer, Rick Rieder, said BlackRock had “started to dabble a bit” in crypto, saying many investors were looking for “places that appreciate under the assumption that inflation moves higher as debts are building.”
“Holding some portion of what you hold in cash in things like crypto seems to make some sense to me, but I wouldn’t espouse a certain allocation or target holding,” said Reider at the time. “My sense is the technology has evolved and the regulations have evolved to the point where a number of people find it should be part of the portfolio.”
In January, BlackRock had mentioned Bitcoin in two prospectus filings with the SEC, indicating there was a possibility of the multi-trillion-dollar asset manager using crypto derivatives and other assets as part of its investment scheme.
