Amid the ongoing tariff tensions between U.S. and China and rising fears of inflation, the price of Bitcoin has seen a substantial surge as it moves towards the $100,000 mark, sparking wild speculations among crypto fans that increasingly see BTC as an emerging alternative to USD.
In that regard, a recent interview of Jay Jacobs, head of Equity ETFs at BlackRock, with CNBC was broadcasted last weekend, where the former suggested that Bitcoin thrives in times of global uncertainty.
Ever since the video interview of Jay Jacobs was broadcast on the CNBC website, social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has been brimming with different claims.
One particular claim that has been made by several X handles is that BlackRock’s Jay Jacobs has claimed that China is going to sell part of its US Treasury holdings and diversify investments in Bitcoin and Gold.
Several X handles, including “cryptopolitan,” made the claim that BlackRock’s Jay Jacobs has an inside scoop on how China is considering buying Bitcoin and gold as a preference over US treasury holdings.
Let us fact-check the claims made in certain tweets posted on X since Sunday, regarding BlackRock’s Jay Jacobs making certain claims.
Did BlackRock’s Jay Jacobs really say China is selling treasury holdings to stack up Bitcoins?
On April 25, CNBC uploaded a 3-minute 48-second video interview of Jay Jacobs of BlackRock, as part of their popular show ‘Squawk Box Asia,’ hosted by Martin Soong and Chery Kang. The interview shows Jacobs explaining how geopolitical risk associated with Trump’s tariff wars will continue to be a mega force that drives greater dispersion between stocks and crypto.
At 2 minutes 55 seconds into the interview, host Martin Soong can be heard asking, “After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, $300 billion worth of assets of Russia were frozen in a bank in Belgium. It became a trigger point for countries like China to stop recycling their surplus into treasuries and more into gold and crypto, do you think”?
To this question, Jacob responds, “If you look at it, central banks have been continuously moving towards diversification beyond US dollars to gold and crypto, and it’s been happening for decades. Back in 2023, we at BlackRock released our new framework for investing, ‘Megaforces’ where we identified geopolitical fragmentation as a major driving point for policy. Therefore, the rise of Bitcoin is a result of geopolitical fragmentation.”
Therefore, to make claims that BlackRock’s Jay Jacobs has claimed that China is selling treasury holdings to buy Bitcoin is not correct and is misleading.
Also Read: Has The Economist claimed China will unban Crypto? Fact Check
