Why This Former Barclays CEO Loves To See More 'Mainstream' Firms Like BlackRock Toying With Crypto

Bob Diamond, former CEO of Barclays on Wednesday said he wasn’t surprised by BlackRock Inc’s BLK  broader interest in the cryptocurrency market.

What Happened:  BlackRock recently filed for a spot Bitcoin BTC/USD exchange-traded fund (ETF), which if approved, would see the company become the first in the United States to offer such an investment. 

"I love seeing some of the more mainstream firms getting involved here like BlackRock…I'm not surprised that they're more involved now in crypto more broadly," Diamond told CNBC's Squawk on Wednesday.

Despite this optimistic outlook, he called for the cryptocurrency industry to be more willing to cooperate with regulators and embrace the need for strong and clear regulations.  He said, "Strong banks want strong regulation." 

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Why It Matters: His comments came at a time when two leading crypto exchanges, Coinbase and Binance, are facing charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 

BlackRock’s filing for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) has sparked interest among rival issuers. Since the filing, Bitcoin has surged over 20% and now trades at more than $30,000.

In response to BlackRock’s move, other firms have followed suit with their own ETF filings. Within hours of WisdomTree’s filing with the SEC for the WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust, Invesco Ltd. updated its own application for the physically-backed Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF.

Price Action: At the time of writing,  BTC was trading at $30,330.69, up 5.43% in the last 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro.

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