BlackRock, one of the biggest ETF carriers in the crypto space, is now the owner of two Rocks NFT. In the past couple of days, a prankster sent first a black Rock, then a white Rock, which now sits in one of the public BlackRock wallets.
BlackRock has adopted the more serious side of crypto, becoming an ETF issuer, as well as issuing its RWA token, BUIDL. Now, BlackRock is also an owner of NFT-like inscriptions or Ordinals on the Bitcoin blockchain.
A sender supplied one of the BlackRock wallets with a black Rock NFT. A day after that, Arkham Intelligence saw another transaction containing a white Rock NFT. The random inscriptions, or Ordinals, are targeting the largest ETF wallet among all crypto holders. As of August 24, BlackRock became the biggest holder of ETF reserves, after Grayscale divested some of the holdings.
The two Rocks landed into the wallet of the BlackRock IBIT ETF. Previously, BlackRock and other known wallets have received ‘dust’ or tracker transactions. The latest NFT gifts came from CoinJoin addresses, making the sender untraceable.
BLACKROCK NOW OWNS A WHITE ROCK
The same guy just sent BlackRock a White Rock.
What’s his endgame? https://t.co/OKgPbLrIc3 pic.twitter.com/dycuHLGsbE
— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) September 10, 2024
The Rocks are not linked to the original Ethereum collection, which commanded prices as high as 777 ETH. The value and rarity of the rocks are low, estimated at $0.31. The most probable reason for the transactions may be publicity, as the IBIT fund wallet only has a handful of transactions, making the two Rock NFTs highly visible.
ETF wallet carries NFT collection
The known wallet of the BlackRock IBIT ETF has received other NFTs in the past, staying hidden among serious financial transactions. The two latest transactions can be visualized at NFTScan. Sending out NFT or dropping tokens has been a long-running practice in crypto, especially targeting the wallets of prominent players in the space.
The two Inscriptions are numbered and represented on the Bitcoin blockchain. The two Rocks are actually not a part of a collection, and in fact carry low-quality images. They are not related to the original Bitcoin Rocks collection, tradable on MagicEden.
The Black Rock inscription #75625843 was created on September 9, the next one a day later. They do not seem connected to a collection, based on each inscription’s on-chain data. Instead, the rocks are just spoofing previous trends on Ethereum and Bitcoin, where the collection was deliberately made up of simple, even boring rock images.
The same ETF address with more than $33M in BTC also received other transactions of images or inscriptions over time, such as Inscription #75151663 , minted on September 2. While the boom of Ordinals is now in the past, there are still up to 20K inscriptions on the Bitcoin chain daily. More than 80% of inscriptions are in plain text.
About 20 days ago, the BlackRock address even received a Bitcoin Puppet. Previously, the address also contains a long list of Sats inscriptions, which were reflected as dust transactions in the wallet.
The BlackRock wallet has not received Runes, and has only one zero-value token. Most Ordinals sent to the address do not belong to collections and have no images attached.
BlackRock keeps expanding its BUIDL token influence
While NFT may be a form of minor cyber vandalism, BlackRock keeps betting on the space with real-world assets.
The BUIDL token, tied to US T-Bills, expanded its supply to $514M. The token has already spread to 20 addresses, from just 18 previous holders. BUIDL is mostly held as collateral since it represents up to 25% of all tokenized government debt on the market, with stablecoins excluded.
In the past week, crypto investors also received another tool for betting on the success of BUIDL. Injective, a dedicated DeFi protocol, launched a new product to track the supply of BUIDL. The new market will track the supply of BUIDL as it is altered by mints and burns. The BUIDL fund has more than $88M in stablecoins for quick redeems, but also sees inflows. BUIDL also pays out passive earnings to all token holders.
BlackRock’s BUIDL token redeemed $500K in USDC from its on-chain fund, sending back the stablecoins to Ondo Finance. Recently, a private address also received a 250K USDC redemption. The address is tied as a counterparty to a high-profile ETH address with multiple NFTs, having the profile of a crypto influencer or insider. The same address also owns the Blackrock.eth ENS address.
The recent connections of BlackRock wallets reveal that crypto space remains unpredictable and uncensored, despite its links to traditional finance and sizeable investments.
Cryptopolitan reporting by Hristina Vasileva
