• A wallet labeled BlackRock withdrew 1.27 trillion in PEPE tokens worth $1.98 million from Binance to four addresses on May 18.
• It is speculated that the wallet belonged to the investment giant BlackRock Fund.
• The firm already had some exposure to crypto through its investment in FTX which resulted in a $24 million loss.
BlackRock-labeled Wallet Nets $2.4 Million from PEPE Tokens
A wallet labeled with the name of the global asset manager, BlackRock, withdrew 1.27 trillion PEPE tokens worth $1.98 million from Binance to four addresses on May 18th, 2021 according to Lookonchain data analysis. On-chain sleuths have suggested that these addresses were likely created by BlackRock Fund and speculation has arisen as to whether or not this large token sale was indeed conducted by them or someone else using their name for personal gains.
BlackRock Already Has Crypto Exposure
BlackRock is one of the world’s largest asset managers with around $10 trillion in assets under management as of January 2022 and they already had some exposure to cryptocurrency through their investments in FTX which resulted in a $24 million loss for them last year.
BlackRock Partners With Coinbase
In April 2021, it was announced that Blackrock would be partnering with Coinbase Custody platform at launch later this year, giving it access to additional services such as cold storage wallet solutions and staking features – something which could potentially be used for larger institutional investments into cryptocurrency markets going forward.
Profit From Trading Pepe Token
Lookonchain also noted that the Blackrock Fund bought 1 trillion units of PEPE for $244 on April 21st and sold all the tokens for a total of $2.63 million on May 5th – making a profit of approximately $2.39 million from this particular trade alone!
Confirmation Of Funds Belonging To Blackrock?
CryptoSlate could not confirm if these funds did indeed belong to the investment giant but given their recent interest in cryptocurrencies, it wouldn’t be too surprising if they had made such an investment into memecoin marketplaces like Pepe Cash (PEPE).
