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According to a recent filing, Blackrock, the multi-national investment company based in New York City and the world’s largest asset manager, has plans to create a new exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on metaverse companies. The fund — dubbed the Ishares Future Metaverse Tech and Communications ETF — will track metaverse firms with exposure to virtual reality, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), augmented reality, and game-centric finance (gamefi) applications.
The world’s largest asset manager by assets under management (AUM), Blackrock, has been investing more energy into the digital asset and blockchain space in recent times. On Friday, Bloomberg’s Katherine Greifeld and Vildana Hajric first reported on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing for Blackrock’s new ETF called the Ishares Future Metaverse Tech and Communications ETF.
The news follows the recent launch of the Ishares Blockchain Technology UCITS ETF, and in August Blackrock partnered with Coinbase to provide clients with access to crypto assets. Hajric’s and Greifeld’s report highlights a filing submitted on Thursday, September 29. The reporters note that the new metaverse ETF doesn’t have an assigned ticker yet.
The latest Blackrock metaverse ETF could include firms exposed to “virtual platforms, social media, gaming, digital assets, [and] augmented reality,” the report adds. Blackrock’s chief executive officer Larry Fink remarked last year, that as far as bitcoin is concerned, he’s “more on the Jamie Dimon camp.”
At the time, however, Fink further remarked that he envisioned “a huge role for a digitized currency” and said he believes that it’s “going to help consumers worldwide, whether it’s bitcoin or something else.” On the other hand, Blackrock’s Rick Rieder, the chief investment officer (CIO) of the asset manager, has said bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are durable assets.
“I still think bitcoin and crypto are durable assets,” Rieder explained during an interview with Yahoo Finance Live. “It’s a durable business, but there was so much excess built around it,” Rieder added during the interview.
Furthermore, just after the company partnered with Coinbase, Blackrock launched a bitcoin private trust in mid-August. The multi-national investment company said the reason it launched the private BTC trust was because bitcoin is still a “primary subject of interest,” according to Blackrock’s clientele.
