Thread by @adamscochran

1/12

Ok, one last bullish BlackRock tweet to round out the weekend.

People don't realize that BlackRock really made the gold market as we know it today.

Pre-BlackRock it was a $1T market.

Now it's about $13T.

So how did they do it?

2/12

BlackRock has an army of advisors around the world who receive commission for pushing their products.

And while they've got a lot of brands for their funds, they are most known for "iShares" which offers 3 of the 5 largest gold ETFs in the world.

3/12

BlackRock has tools to let its advisors earn a 3% advisory fee on the products they sell, as well as to add on custom advisory fees.

Depending on the jurisdiction of the offering and advisor, there can also be trailing fees.

4/12

But in most places the fees are for new products sold.

And, due to various regulations can be more lucrative for alternative assets than standard shares.

But when BlackRock introduced their gold product, they began to add it to their model portfolios for advisors.

5/12

Advisors, eager to push the product and get commission on a new asset class began to tell Boomers that gold was the perfect component to round out a portfolio and hedge against inflation and other risks.

This led to a boon in gold investment demand.

6/12

While much of global demand for gold is still purpose driven (Jewelry and tech) this push grew the investment sector of demand to almost 25%, which led to a second order effect of increasing the amount of gold central banks were buying.

7/12

Because people valued gold, central banks in turn valued gold and rapidly increased demand for it.

All driven from this push.

8/12

Gold had exchange traded products prior to this - in fact as far back as 1961 there was a gold ETF in Canada.

And, State Street launched their SPDR gold ETF in 2004, which is the largest of all the gold ETFs.

9/12

But BlackRock through its army of advisors pushed the narrative that gave gold broader legitimacy in a portfolio.

It's network told millions of users that you *needed* gold to have a well balanced financial safety net.

10/12

After doing this for a two decades, we now find that young wealth managers and economists who have climbed to seats in central banks and sovereign wealth funds, view the "gold as portfolio safety" narrative as a no-brainer.

11/12

The same will hold true with crypto.

We have existing non-US ETFs and US ETPs.

BlackRock will arm advisors to educate millions of consumers on allocating X% of their portfolio to crypto and change the narrative entirely.

12/12

Then as the dollar declines, and a new generation of wealth managers, bankers and economists who grew up in the digital era ascend to the chairs of central banks - where do you think they will turn to for reserves?

What will they invest the future of their country in?