Asset managment giant BlackRock is now the owner of at least $40,000 in memecoins and nonfungible tokens (NFTs), after onchain sleuths sniffed out one of its supposed wallets connected to a new tokenization fund.
Data shows a $100 million USD Coin (USDC) deposit was made on Ethereum on March 15 — exactly one day after the firm made a filing to offer its BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund via a partnership with San Francisco-based asset tokenization firm Securitize.
Unnamed crypto users have sent at least 40 coins and 25 NFTs to the BlackRock-labeladdress since March 19, ranging from Bitcoin-based Ordinals Pepe (PEPE) coin to a CryptoDickbutts S3 NFT.
Exactly 500,000 unshETHing_Token (USH) and 10,000 Realio Network (RIO) tokens were also transferred to the $10 trillion asset manager, which boasted the largest values at $13,755 and $11,600 respectively.
Interestingly, the RIO token is a real-world asset tokenization coin which has pumped 47% since the token was transferred to BlackRock, according to CoinGecko.
The Larry Fink-led firm also received large quantities of Mog Coin (Mog) VoldemortTrumpRobotnik-10Neko (ETHEREUM) and Shina Inu (SHI).
Chungos and KaijuKingz were among the most notable NFTs sent through to the asset manager.
Data shows the BlackRock address first made a $200 USDC deposit on March 5. The firm then made another $10 test deposit on March 15 before depositing $99,999,960 a few blocks later, according to Etherscan.
Related: JPMorgan debuts tokenization platform, BlackRock among key clients: Report
BlackRock’s Fink has changed his stance on Bitcoin (BTC) and the blockchain industry since 2017, where he previously referred to Bitcoin as an “index of money laundering.”
His views changed considerably since and BlackRock filed for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in June 2023, which has since been approved and is capturing some of the largest volumes in the entire ETF market.
Fink and BlackRock are now looking to tokenize financial assets on Ethereum.
“We believe the next step going forward will be the tokenization of financial assets, and that means every stock, every bond […] will be on one general ledger,” Fink said in a recent Bloomberg interview.
The BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund will be tickered “BUIDL.”
It will provide eligible investors with the opportunity to earn U.S. dollar yields by subscribing to the Fund through Securitize Markets, LLC.
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