$BTC: SkyBridge Capital founder on why BlackRock’s interest in Bitcoin is a big deal
Recently, former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who is the founder and managing partner of global alternative investment firm SkyBridge Capital, shared his thoughts on the partnership between BlackRock and Coinbase.
SkyBridge Capital is “an SEC-registered investment advisor and global alternative investment manager that invests in hedge funds, digital assets, private equity and real estate.”
On January 4, 2021, Skybridge announced “the launch of the SkyBridge Bitcoin Fund LP, which provides mass-affluent investors with an institutional-grade vehicle to gain exposure to Bitcoin.”
The press release went on to say:
“In addition, on behalf of the flagship funds, SkyBridge initiated a position, valued at approximately $310 million at the time of this release, in funds investing in Bitcoin during November and December 2020.“
According to a Cointelegraph report published on April 25, 2022, SkyBridge Capital “also has money deployed in other hedge funds, late-stage private technology companies and real estate.” SkyBridge has also been trying to get a physical Bitcoin ETF approved by the US SEC.
Last Monday (August 22), Scaramucci – during an interview with CNBC – explained why the partnership between BlackRock and Coinbase, which was announced on August 4, was so important.
Founded in 1988, BlackRock started with just eight people working in one room. It went public on the New York Stock Exchange on October 1, 1999 at $14 per share. In 2006, BlackRock acquired Merrill Lynch Investment Management. Then in 2009 it acquired Barclay’s Global Investors (BGI), “which became the world’s largest asset manager, with employees in 24 countries.” At the end of the second quarter of 2022, BlackRock had $8.48 trillion in assets under management (AUM).
On August 4, Coinbase’s Brett Tejpaul (who is Head of Coinbase Institutional) and Greg Tusar (who is Head of Institutional Product) published a blog post, in which they stated that “Coinbase and BlackRock will create new access points for institutional crypto adoption by connecting Coinbase Prime and Aladdin .”
The blog post went on to say that “Coinbase is partnering with BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, to provide institutional clients of Aladdin®, BlackRock’s end-to-end investment management platform, direct access to crypto, starting with bitcoin, through connectivity with Coinbase Prime.” Apparently, Coinbase Prime will “provide crypto trading, custody, prime brokerage and reporting capabilities to Aladdin’s institutional customer base who are also customers of Coinbase.”
As reported by The Daily Hodl, Scaramucci told CNBC:
“People don’t pay close enough attention to what BlackRock is doing. If Larry Fink and his team put up a product related to Bitcoin, it means there is institutional demand out there. Whether they have a positive or negative opinion of Bitcoin does not matter.
“There is an expression back at [investment bank] Goldman Sachs in the early 90s: “feed the ducks”. If the ducks want Bitcoin, set up a product and feed the ducks. And so I think this is a big thing that just isn’t fleshed out as much as it should be.“
