Large institutional funds on a global scale are getting closer and closer to Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrencies. Now BlackRock, the world’s leading investment company, is injecting funds into two companies engaged in mining digital assets.
The company, headquartered in New York, disbursed $ 382 million for inject them into Marathon Digital Holdings and Riot Blockchain . These are two US corporations listed on the Nasdaq market that are deploying infrastructure and installing thousands of ASIC miners.
BlackRock invested $ 206 million in Marathon and another $ 176 million in Riot, according to a report released by Forbes magazine. The institutional fund manager now manages about 6% of both companies. Investments in Bitcoin mining were made public after BlackRock submitted a performance report to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The move shows that, despite the scrutiny it experiences the mining activity of BTC, world renowned investors want to participate or deepen their relationship with the bitcoiner ecosystem . In fact, after the report was released, Marathon shares appreciated 10.85%, while Riot’s grew 7%.
Why does BlackRock invest in mining companies?
The reasons why BlackRock is investing in companies related to Bitcoin mining could be multiple. However, the capital injection would be related to the departure of thousands of miners from China. This exodus would benefit the United States or Canada since it would capitalize part of the hash rate or processing power that is leaving Asian territory.
Some Chinese companies could land on North American territory , which would boost the local mining sector. In fact, a report published by CriptoNoticias in July of this year indicates that 40% of the hash rate of Bitcoin will leave China and go to the United States, a country that is opening the doors to digital asset mining.
However, the above could face obstacles due to the legislative debate on the bill infrastructure. The initiative would redefine, for the State, the role of miners who would become brokers for facilitating transactions with cryptocurrencies. In other words, it would be like kicking miners out of the country as they would have to comply with “Know Your Customer” (KYC) regulations for the transactions they process.
According to blockchain metrics .com, the network’s hash rate is starting to pick up after the Chinese miners leave. Six weeks ago the overall computational power was 84.79 TH / s. At the time of publishing this article, the figure was 122.39 TH / s. The rise would be related to the start-up of new mining farms in North America.
It must be remembered that BlackRock was not totally alien to Bitcoin before investing in Marathon or Riot. In January of this year, the fund manager opened the doors to BTC derivatives, according to a request sent to the SEC. More recently, in March, it became known that the corporation had acquired $ 6.5 million bitcoin futures contracts.
