(Bloomberg) — BlackRock Inc. is preparing to offer a fund through a partnership with digital-asset specialist Securitize, making it the latest Wall Street behemoth to experiment with putting money on blockchains.
The world’s largest asset manager said it plans to launch “BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund Ltd.” with Securitize, a digital-asset firm specializing in tokenization, according to a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission dated on March 14 that was listed on the agency’s website Monday.
The minimum investment accepted from any outside investors is set at $100,000, according to the filing. There are few details in the filing regarding the fund, but Securitize is already working with KKR, Hamilton Lane and others for tokenized funds. Crypto sleuths say they’ve already found an unconfirmed digital wallet on the Ethereum blockchain marked as for BlackRock’s tokenized fund. Representatives at BlackRock and Securitize did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Tokenization is a method of purchasing securities in the form of digital assets using blockchains. The process has been promoted heavily recently as one of the few viable use cases for blockchains. Before BlackRock, other financial heavyweights including Brevan Howard, and KKR all have announced efforts to tokenize certain parts of their funds. Citigroup has estimated the tokenization market could swell to $5 trillion by 2030.
