Blackrock INSIDER CONFIRMS YOU Are MISSING The Bigger Picture With Bitcoin | EP 1530

**Opti** (0:02)
It's been two years since Blackrock launched their iBit Bitcoin ETF that fundamentally changed everything. Now, I know you guys don't like the ETF, and I know we all don't really like Blackrock. But during that time, I think Blackrock has proved that this ETF wasn't just a marketing stunt. And it appears as if they are hell bent on cramming Bitcoin inside every corner of their $17 trillion of assets that they manage.
And I just saw this recent interview on Cointelegraph with a Blackrock insider, and I found it extremely interesting from their vantage point of what is going on. So I'm going to start with that, and that's where I'm going to leave this conversation. Let's check it out.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:49)
Do you think perception of Bitcoin has changed much in the last few years?

**Jay Jacobs** (0:59)
I think it has, absolutely.
Specifically within the TradFi world, I think it has, because before a lot of TradFi investors were able to participate in Bitcoin, they either didn't really engage in it, more of an apathy, or to more of an extreme, they were actively telling people, don't participate in Bitcoin, we don't understand it, we don't see the value in a portfolio.
And as it became more accessible to the Traditional Finance world through iBit, I think that really started to change how this world views it. Now, I think at a minimum, you can't ignore it at this point. It's a large enough asset, there's enough, if you're a financial advisor, there's a tremendous amount of questions you're probably getting from your clients, particularly younger clients about this asset. So in many cases, you need to at least have a baseline understanding of what it is and the role it might play in the portfolio, whether you want to allocate to it or not. But I think as many people have started to go through that journey, understanding Bitcoin as an asset, it has changed their tune from maybe something that they were a bit more unsure of or skeptical of into something that maybe they see more portfolio value in. And all of this has happened in the context of global monetary alternatives becoming more relevant in the world we live in today. As you see growing government debts, sticky inflation, greater geopolitical risk. This is happening just alongside where we're seeing tremendous flows into gold ETFs and a lot of people who manage money allocating to gold as a monetary alternative. So I would say the launch of iBit changed the access point. I think it kickstarted a lot of the education for advisors. And then the macro environment has kind of accelerated all of that because people are looking for things that look like Bitcoin or could behave like Bitcoin given what's happening in the world today.

**Opti** (2:58)
Okay, guys. So look, first off, I will, I will caveat this with maybe it may be a hot take. Maybe I'm maturing here. And this is probably where this is coming from. I mean, less on the maturity aspect, but it is almost feeling like our hatred of Blackrock might be a bit misguided. You know, hold the tomatoes. Let me, let me explain. And it really reminds me of the Max Kaiser idea of employee of the month, like Bitcoin's employee of the month. And I know when we kind of covered this a lot, we would always say that Larry Fink was the employee of the month because of the ETF launch and because of all the inflows. And actually, right before this, there was an interesting clip and conversation around the ETF inflows and outflows. Obviously, we have been following the outflows a lot on this show. And I think a lot of us Bitcoiners have been following the outflows of the ETF, or rather the flows of the ETF, whether inflows or outflows. And recently, we have seen a lot of outflows. But he made an interesting point that they really don't put too much emphasis on the short-term flows of the ETF. What they are seeing is the long-term potential of Bitcoin and how much capital has actually attracted. Now, that was a caveat. I do want to kind of unpack what Jay Jacobs was saying, because I found this personally very interesting, especially because I have been so vocal against Blackrock. I, like you, like everyone else, have the idea of Blackrock being the big bad bogeyman on Wall Street. You know, they own part of everything. It's very easy to go down the conspiratorial path about everything. You know, it's either Blackrock or Vanguard or State Street that basically owns every company in the world. You know, it's like the James Bond octopus. You know, they got their fingers everywhere.