According to a recent filing, BlackRock, a New York-based multinational investment firm and the world’s largest asset manager, is creating a new exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on metaverse companies The company has plans to create a new exchange traded fund (ETF) based on metaverse companies. The fund, called the Ishares Future Metaverse Tech and Communications ETF, will target metaverse companies involved in virtual reality, non-fundable tokens (NFTs), augmented reality, and game center finance (gamefi) applications. It will target metaverse companies.
ETF Filing Shows Blackrock Plans to Launch a Metaverse Exchange-Traded Fund
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager by assets under management (AUM), has been putting more energy into digital assets and blockchain in recent days. On Friday, Bloomberg’s Kathryn Greifeld and Virdana Hajlik were the first to report on BlackRock’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of a new ETF called Ishares Future Metaverse Tech and Communications ETFandreported it.
This news follows the recent launch of the Ishares Blockchain Technology UCITS ETF, which in August BlackRock partnered with Coinbase to provide clients with access to crypto assets.Hajric’s report and Greifeld report highlight a filing filed on Thursday, September 29. Reporters note that the new Metaverse ETF does not yet have an assigned ticker.
BlackRock’s latest metaverse ETF could include companies exposed to “virtual platforms, social media, gaming, digital assets, [and] augmented reality,” the report adds. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said last year that he was “close to the Jamie Dimon camp” as far as Bitcoin was concerned.
But at the time, Fink further said that he envisioned “a big role for digitized currencies” and that he believed they would “help consumers around the world, whether it’s bitcoin or something else.” Meanwhile, Rick Reeder, chief investment officer at asset manager BlackRock, said that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are durable assets.
“I still think bitcoin and crypto are durable assets,” Rieder explained in an interview with Yahoo Finance Live.” It is a durable business, but so much excess has built up around it.” Rieder added in the interview.
Additionally, shortly after the firm partnered with Coinbase, BlackRock launched a private bitcoin trust in mid-August. The multinational investment firm said it launched the privateBTCtrust because, according to BlackRock’s clientele, bitcoin remains a “primary object of interest.”
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