American multinational investment giant BlackRock has extended its lead as the world’s dominant asset manager with an $11.5 trillion Asset Under Management (AUM) milestone. As revealed in its third-quarter earnings report, the company said its AUM jumped $2.4 trillion year-over-year, driven by net inflows of $456 billion and positive market movements.

The year Bitcoin emerged

Despite BlackRock laying the groundwork for the broader crypto ecosystem before now, its first major product, the spot Bitcoin ETF, launched this year. 

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This product marked a complete pivot for BlackRock, a traditionally conservative firm. In line with its adoption of Bitcoin, CEO Larry Fink is now one of the major advocates of the digital currency. With the AUM boost, it remains unclear what the firm plans for its iShares Bitcoin Trust product overall.

While the Bitcoin ETF is BlackRock's flagship and most popular crypto product, BlackRock is also fully invested in iShares Ethereum Trust, the ETH ETF. Despite the generally poorer performance of Ethereum ETF products, BlackRock remains in the lead among issuers overall.

With the massive uptick in BlackRock AUM, it may be inferred that Bitcoin and Ethereum contributed significantly to this new milestone.

Will BlackRock do more?

According to its Bitcoin ETF product page, BlackRock has 369,640.1483 BTC in custody as it continues to buy the dip. With this total portfolio, the firm is one of the largest corporate holders of Bitcoin and might increase its bets now that it has more capital reserves.

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As a regulated investment outfit, BlackRock is combining a conservative approach with new tech adoption. As such, its current capital base might encourage it to take more calculated risks in the coin moving forward.

Despite BlackRock's stance, not all rivals share its vision for Bitcoin. Firms like Vanguard have specifically issued a highly publicized disclaimer that it will not get involved with Bitcoin, or crypto in general.