“
‘It’s hard to say is it worth the price it’s trading at today. But do I think it’s a durable mechanism that do I think will take the place of gold to a large extent? Yeah, I do because it’s so much more functional than passing a bar of gold around.’
”
— Rick Rieder
That is Rick Rieder, chief investment officer of global fixed income and head of the global allocation team at BlackRock, on Friday, during a CNBC interview, touting the prospects for bitcoin and digital currencies in the financial landscape.
Rieder describes himself as no “bitcoin bull,” but offers that the benefits of digital assets and bitcoin specifically are clearly positive and productive from his perspective.
“I think bitcoin is here to stay,” he told the business network.
The comments from the asset manager who looks after BlackRock’s more-than-$2-trillion fixed-income division, is one worth taking note of.
It shouldn’t necessarily be taken as an full-throated endorsement of bitcoin and its rivals by BlackRock
BLK,
-0.08%
but it is, perhaps, reflective of another feather in the cap of proponents of the bitcoin who think that it is slowly gaining traction among more levelheaded traditional investors.
Rieder’s statements also come as bitcoin is making a new assault on records and outperforming nearly all assets considered to be its rivals in the year to date.
As of midday Friday, bitcoin stood about 5% from its December 2017 record at $19,783, trading most recently at around $18,800.
Bitcoin prices
BTCUSD,
+4.24%
have gained nearly 162% so far this year, with Bitcoin futures trading on the CME Group
BTC.1,
+3.62%
seeing a similar rise. By comparison, gold
GOLD,
+0.97%
has gained 23% in the year to date, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.45%
has climbed 3% so far in 2020. The S&P 500 index
SPX,
-0.27%
has gained about 11% and the technology-laden Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
+0.03%
has surged roughly 33% over the same period.
Check out an excerpt from Rieder’s CNBC interview via this tweet:
Check out: 6 reasons bitcoin is trading at its highest level since 2017 — and 1 warning
Read: Dalio says he ‘might be missing something about bitcoin’ — challenges Twitter to change his mind
