No, Larry Fink didn’t say bitcoin will be as big as the housing market

Crypto X (formerly Twitter) lit up last night following BlackRock CEO Laurence Fink’s prediction that bitcoin “will become as big as the US housing market.” The only problem is, he never actually said that.

The confusion stemmed from a DLNews report that claimed Fink made the comment during a BlackRock earnings call last Friday. However, the outlet has since published a correction on the story and clarified that, “Fink was referring to BlackRock mortgage products he didn’t name.”

Despite the misreport, Fink’s sentiment during the call was still bullish on bitcoin. He said that regardless of which presidential candidate is elected, “I do believe the utilization of digital assets are going to become more and more of a reality worldwide.”

Read more: Larry Fink flips on bitcoin, ‘digital gold’ not ‘index for money laundering’

“We believe bitcoin is an asset class in itself. It is an alternative to other commodities like gold,” he added.

“I think the application of this form of investment will be expanded to the role of Ethereum as a blockchain can grow dramatically. So if we can create more acceptability, more transparency, more analytics related to these assets, then it will be expanded.”

These statements reflect a changing approach for Fink, who back in 2017 called bitcoin an “index for money laundering.”

The call revealed that BlackRock’s assets under management reached a record high of $11.48 trillion last week. The company’s bitcoin ETF has also managed to amass $23 billion during its first nine months.

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