BlackRock CEO Seeing No Demand for Crypto

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">On this episode of “The Breakdown,” NLW addresses recent shifts in institutional and regulatory discussions on crypto, including:</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">How BlackRock CEO Larry Fink sees the state of crypto </span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">ShapeShift’s final structural shift</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Fed Chairman Jay Powell’s stance against stablecoins</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">A dissenting letter from two SEC commissioners</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">BlackRock made headlines when it entered the crypto market because it viewed bitcoin as a hedge play that could no longer be ignored. Now, this investment management company finds itself in a changed landscape as bitcoin prices have fallen from all-time highs. How has CEO Larry Fink’s view of crypto changed with this new price point?</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">ShapeShift, a global digital asset trading platform, was created with a vision of minimizing user-collected data. That vision was tarnished in 2018 when the platform began requiring basic information, resulting in a 95% loss of its user base. ShapeShift’s tumultuous history has added another chapter today with the announcement that it is converting to a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, owned by the users. Is this one step in a greater trend of fundamentally shedding corporate organizational power structures?</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell countered Vice Chairman Randal Quarles’ pro-stablecoin stance in a recent testimony before Congress. While Quarles asserted successful stablecoins would make a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC) redundant, Powell offered the opposite opinion: “You wouldn’t need stablecoins, y