BlackRock, which manages $15.3 trillion in client assets, has expanded its tokenized cash offerings with new blockchain-based money market products. Its head of digital assets, Robert Mitchnick, said last week that the macro case for bitcoin is strengthening.
BlackRock has been building its digital-asset presence in Asia. During Consensus Hong Kong 2026, Nicholas Peach, head of BlackRock’s APAC iShares division, said that even a 1% allocation to crypto in Asia could drive nearly $2 trillion in inflows into the market. Peach based the calculation on an estimated $108 trillion of household wealth in Asia.
The firm announced a new digital-assets role in Singapore in December, saying the hire would influence its strategy across Asia and identify first-mover opportunities in the region.
Bitget has 125 million registered users globally, with roughly half based in East and Southeast Asia, Chen noted.
More than half of Bitget’s users, 52% according to the company’s own Q1 2026 data, already hold both crypto and traditional stocks, Chen said, making crypto exchanges a potential distribution point for asset managers trying to reach investors who no longer separate the two asset classes.
Coinbase serves as custodian for the majority of BlackRock’s bitcoin and Ethereum ETPs in the U.S., Keith Grose, Coinbase’s UK CEO, told CoinDesk separately. “Players like BlackRock are leading the way,” Grose said. “They were the first to launch a Bitcoin at-scale ETP, and now they also have large funds onchain.”
