BlackRock launches private trust offering direct bitcoin exposure

Investment manager BlackRock has launched a private trust offering US-based institutional clients exposure to spot bitcoin.

The trust will be available to US-based institutional clients and will be BlackRock's first product that offers direct exposure to the price of bitcoin.

"Despite the steep downturn in the digital asset market, we are still seeing substantial interest from some institutional clients in how to efficiently and cost-effectively access these assets using our technology and product capabilities," BlackRock said in a statement.

On August 4, BlackRock announced a deal with crypto exchange Coinbase to offer institutional investors access to crypto, beginning with bitcoin. BlackRock, which manages around $9 trillion of customer funds, will use Coinbase Prime to provide the service.

This comes just a year after BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said that the asset manager was seeing very little demand for digital assets.

Earlier in 2021, BlackRock filed that its Global Allocation fund had gained some exposure to bitcoin, through CME's bitcoin futures offering. This came two months after two BlackRock funds, including the Blackrock Global Allocation Fund, indicated in regulatory filings that they would potentially obtain exposure to crypto markets by way of CME's bitcoin futures product.