Hey, it’s Marc.

Larry Fink doesn’t do pilot programs anymore.

On Tuesday, the CEO of the world’s largest asset manager—$13.46 trillion in AUM—told Wall Street that BlackRock is building proprietary tokenization technology to rebuild capital markets on-chain.

“We need to be tokenizing all assets, especially assets that have multiple levels of intermediaries,” Fink said during Q3 earnings. He called it “the next wave of opportunity for BlackRock over the next tens of years.”

— BlackRock Inc. CEO Larry Fink

The goal? To onboard the next generation of investors. What Larry Fink meant:

“If we can tokenize an ETF, we can bring investors who start with crypto into traditional long-term products. Over the next decade, we’ll move away from traditional assets by repotting them in a digital form and keeping investors inside that ecosystem.”

Let’s unpack.

What Happened

BlackRock confirmed it’s developing in-house tokenization infrastructure to digitize ETFs, equities, bonds, and real estate.

“We’re at the beginning of tokenization of all assets,” including real estate, equities, and bonds.

Fink basically told Wall Street that the world’s largest asset manager, $13.4 trillion AUM, is preparing to rebuild capital markets on-chain.

And “It is our belief that we need to be moving rapidly”.

The numbers back the urgency. Q3 delivered record results: $205 billion in net inflows, record AUM of $13.46 trillion (up 17% YoY), and $11.55 adjusted EPS (beating estimates of $11.30). Digital assets led the charge: iShares ETFs and digital asset ETPs pulled in $17 billion, with Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs now holding $93 billion and $17 billion, respectively.

What they need is a platform capable of managing complex, multi-jurisdictional issuance, sophisticated lifecycle management, strict compliance enforcement, and transfer agency functions at unprecedented scale. Yet, the current secure, scalable, and interoperable system built on Ethereum, Solana, and Wormhole remains little more than an experimental proof of concept. Internalising these functions ensures consistency, proprietary optimisation, and maximum security.

Why It Matters

1. Tokenization as a competitive advantage: Today’s settlement system relays instructions step-by-step across intermediaries, taking days. Assets move directly, instantly, bypassing multi-day holds and redundant intermediaries. For BlackRock’s clients, institutions moving billions daily, this is operational alpha: faster liquidity, lower counterparty risk, 24/7 global access.
2. Distribution disruption: Fink explicitly mentioned reaching “young investors” who hold assets in digital wallets. There are $4.1 trillion in these wallets. BlackRock’s bet: tokenized ETFs become the on-ramp from crypto-native investors into traditional long-term products (retirement, fixed income, diversified equities). It’s not competing with Vanguard anymore, it’s competing with Coinbase and Binance for the next generation’s AUM.

Vertical integration at scale: BlackRock initially relied on specialized partners like Securitize for BUIDL’s issuance. Now it’s internalizing the stack. The move signals BlackRock intends to weave tokenization, issuance, and compliance directly into Aladdin, its flagship risk management and trading platform serving $13.4T in AUM.
Proof point: Last week, BlackRock integrated Talos’s order and execution management system into Aladdin, enabling direct crypto trading with algorithmic execution, smart order routing, and OTC dealer access. First-week volume: $1 billion.

Our Take

BlackRock isn’t alone. Franklin Templeton’s FOBXX tokenized money market fund holds $559M across nine blockchains (Ethereum, Stellar, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Aptos, VeChain, Base, Polygon). UBS launched uMINT, its tokenised money market fund on Ethereum. JPMorgan’s Onyx platform is tokenising intraday repo. Apollo tokenized private credit (ACRED).

But BlackRock’s building proprietary infrastructure. That’s the difference. While competitors partner or use third-party platforms, BlackRock is positioning itself as the issuer, custodian, and technology provider. It’s the AWS strategy applied to tokenized finance: control the cloud, own the customer relationship.

Tokenization is coming. And BlackRock is making sure it owns the rails.

PRO: Download the PDF

Today’s Market Signals

• Stripe adds stablecoin payments for recurring subscriptions using USDC. Link
• JPMorgan commits $1.5T to strengthen key U.S. industries. Link
• Bhutan moves its national ID system from Polygon to Ethereum. Link
• CME launches CFTC-approved options trading for Solana and XRP. Link

That’s all for today’s CEO Briefing.

Best,

Marc & Team

🙌 Work with us: We create pioneering thought leadership that helps digital asset and technology companies lead the conversation, earn trust and win business.