The world's largest asset manager, BlackRock, is developing its own technology for the tokenization of traditional assets, according to the firm's CEO, Larry Fink, who noted this on Tuesday.

It is worth noting that during an interview with Squawk on the Street on CNBC, Fink stated that he sees the tokenization of all assets as the next big step for his company.

“If we can tokenize an ETF, digitalize that ETF, we can enable investors who are just starting to invest in the markets through, for example, cryptocurrencies, to invest in it. But now we can incorporate them into more traditional long-term retirement products,” Fink indicated.

Additionally, the CEO noted that he sees the phenomenon of tokenization as the “next wave of opportunities for BlackRock over the coming decades.” This is happening as the firm moves away from traditional financial assets, reformatting them into digital form and ensuring that people stay within that “digital ecosystem.”

“We are having conversations with all the major platforms in finance about how they can play a role in driving the tokenization of BlackRock, within the context of digital wallets,” Fink added.

It is important to note that, as shown in its quarterly earnings report published on Tuesday, BlackRock is currently the largest asset manager in the world, with $13.5 trillion in assets under management (AUM). Additionally, the company holds $104 billion in cryptocurrencies, which represents approximately 1% of its total portfolio.

Additionally, BlackRock is behind the largest Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, which currently have $93 billion and $17 billion in assets under management, respectively, according to data from a data platform.

According to BlackRock, tokenization is the future of finance

Fink promoted tokenization as the future of markets in 2022 and has remained a high-profile advocate for the technology on Wall Street, serving as a possible harbinger of how the most influential financial institutions might adopt digital assets over time.

“We believe we must act quickly on tokenization,” Fink expressed in the interview. “We need to tokenize all assets, especially those with multiple levels of intermediaries,” he added.

On the other hand, although BlackRock is not currently focused on the blockchain representation of real estate, Fink highlighted it as an area where tokenization could reduce fees.

It is worth noting that tokenized assets have experienced some adoption among individual investors. However, Fink stated that young people are the ones who use them most frequently, and that presenting them with more traditional assets earlier could better prepare them for life events such as retirement.

As a reference, the BlackRock Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund in USD (BUIDL), which debuted last year after its launch by a company, is currently among the largest tokenized assets, with a value of $2.8 billion.

However, despite the fact that BlackRock is competing towards tokenized markets, Fink suggested that it might take some time before the public has a clearer view of what the Wall Street giant has in store.

“I believe we will have some interesting announcements in the coming years about how we could play a larger role in this idea of tokenization and digitization of all assets,” Fink said. “We are dedicating a lot of time to trying to develop our own technology related to this,” he added.