BlackRock CEO Fink says ‘we’re halfway there in the ETF revolution’ (NYSE:BLK)

“If we can ETF a bitcoin, imagine what we could do with all financial instruments,” said Laurence Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock, the world’s biggest issuer of exchange-traded funds.

Earlier, BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) had announced a restructuring that includes embedding the company’s iShares ETF and index business across the entire company. He wants to imbue the philosophy of what iShares can provide in everything, he said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

“We believe we’re halfway there in the ETF revolution. Everything is going to be ETF’d,” he said, adding that “we need to ensure both active, products, passive products, digital products are going to be used through the vehicle of ETFs.”

He thinks the next step will be the tokenization of financial assets, which can offer a number of benefits. “That means every stock, every bond will have its own CUSIP. It will be on one general ledger.”

In such a system, every investor will have their own identification. “We can rid ourselves of all issues around illicit activity around stocks and bonds by having tokenization,” Fink said.

The technology will also mean investors can customize strategies through tokenization and have instant settlements. “We believe this is a technological transformation for financial assets,” he said.

It’s not the end of mutual funds, but ETFs will become the dominant form, he added.

BlackRock (BLK) also agreed to acquire Global Infrastructure Partners for $3B in cash and $12M in common stock, bringing the value of the deal to ~$13.5B based on Thursday’s BLK closing price of $792.61. Meanwhile, it posted Q4 EPS of $9.56, beating the $8.82 consensus.