Coinbase Stock Jumps 20% Amid Deal With World’s Largest Investment Fund

Investment fund BlackRock, which manages more than $10 trillion in client assets, has opened access to bitcoin to its institutional clients through a partnership with Coinbase. The exchange announced this on its blog.

The service will be provided through the Coinbase Prime brokerage division, and at the start, only bitcoin will be available from the abundance of cryptocurrencies. However, it is expected that the variety of cryptocurrencies will expand in the future.

Joseph Chalom, Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships at BlackRock, says that institutional investors are “increasingly interested in gaining access to cryptocurrencies.” It is noteworthy that a year ago, the head of BlackRock, Larry Fink, argued that the firm does not see any interest in cryptocurrencies from its large clients.

Wall Street hedge fund representatives interviewed by the media urged not to exaggerate the scale of the deal. For example, the head of the investment research firm New Constructs, David Trainer, said that large investors have long been able to access cryptocurrencies through other communication channels. Which ones, he did not specify. However, Trainer called the increased demand from major BlackRock investors for the cryptocurrency “far-fetched.”

Nevertheless, shares of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase responded to the news with a muscular pump, soaring by 20% in price. At the time of writing, COIN quotes are $88.9. The market capitalization of Coinbase has grown to $19.7 billion. However, since the beginning of 2022, the shares of the exchange are still in the red by 65%, and since the entry into the stock exchange, by 74%.