BlackRock’s CEO Weighs In on Bitcoin Once More

Larry Fink rekindled the debate. Is bitcoin primarily an everyday currency, or a store of value?

Bitcoin, Digital Gold

For the CEO of BlackRock, bitcoin is gold, not a substitute for national currencies. ‘I have become a bitcoin supporter. Not as an everyday currency, but as digital gold‘, he said.

People accumulate bitcoins when they fear for their country, when they fear that the national currency loses value.

Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock

However, everyone knows that national currencies keep losing their value. $10,000 in 2015 now only buys $5,980 worth of goods. That’s a loss of 40% of purchasing power in barely ten years…

Knowing that the dollar is one of the strongest currencies in the world! The cost is much higher in Turkey, Argentina, Egypt, Venezuela, Lebanon, Nigeria, etc. There, inflation is double-digit, even triple-digit over the decade.

Bitcoin is a revolution in that it takes away from the richest the exclusive privilege of benefiting from inflation, while the less wealthy suffer it. The reason being that it is possible to buy €100 worth of bitcoin, whereas it takes hundreds of thousands of euros to access rare assets such as luxury real estate, art objects, the good stock market picks, etc.

Why would bitcoin compete with luxury real estate? Because it is a technological breakthrough that for the first time offered the world a liquid asset (unlike real estate or the Mona Lisa) existing in absolutely finite quantity.

While inflation has always benefited the wealthy rich, bitcoin disrupts everything. Everyone can now protect their savings from the very first euro.

Why doesn’t Larry Fink think bitcoin can replace national currencies? The answer is in the third part.

The Never-ending Currency Devaluation

Larry Fink knows that the devaluation of national currencies is not about to stop. Just look at the world’s largest economy to be convinced.

The US federal debt increased by $1 trillion over the last 50 days. That’s $21 billion per day.

The United States recorded a deficit of $291 billion for July 2025 alone. Simply put, the level of public spending relative to GDP is similar to levels reached during World War II and the 2008 crisis.

The budget deficit increased by 7% compared to 2024. It already reaches $1.63 trillion, putting 2025 on track to record the third largest deficit in US history.

In total, debt is now close to $37 trillion, or $108,000 per person. Europe is no exception. The debt per French person is €51,000 (~$60,000).

This headlong rush is the rule almost everywhere in the world. The problem is that the money supply has increased by an average of 7% per year for a century (in the United States) while growth no longer follows.

From 1970 to 1980, GDP growth in advanced countries fell from 3.75% to 3.25%. Then 2.75% in the 1980s to 1990s, 2.25% in the 1990s to 2000s, 1.75% in the 2000s to 2010s, and finally 1.25% from 2010 to 2020.

We can no longer generate enough growth to match money creation. Hence the acceleration of inflation and the global success of bitcoin.

Bitcoin is not a currency?

Of course it is, especially thanks to the Lightning Network. Payments in bitcoin are as easy as card payments. Many companies accept it, but it is true that it’s far from being universal. For several reasons.

The first is that transaction fees are often painfully high to buy bitcoins. Getting rid of euros first thus allows savings.

The second is that bitcoin cannot really replace the banking system which is essential for complex societies (nuclear power plants, semiconductor factories, satellite constellations, trains, airplanes, etc).

The ability to create money out of nothing and destroy it upon repayment is the cornerstone of any economy. Without this monetary tool, goodbye nuclear plants, railways, and even access to real estate ownership. In short, everything that costs a lot and whose amortization spans years.

We could not build an advanced civilization without the banking system. We need a “fractional reserve system” which, by definition, cannot exist if the money supply is fixed.

The money supply must on one hand be elastic and on the other hand constantly increase. Why? So that every economic actor can find within the economic magma enough money to repay their loan, PLUS interest. It is this accounting imperative that makes the fiat system a Ponzi.

This is why Larry Fink does not think bitcoin can replace national currencies. We need two currencies. One to invest, one to save.

Bitcoin does not need to replace the entire monetary system to succeed. Don’t miss our article: The Bull Run Continues!