BlackRock CEO Larry Fink ‘major believer’ there’s role for bitcoin in portfolios: CNBC Crypto World

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink ‘major believer’ there’s role for bitcoin in portfolios: CNBC Crypto World

today Bitcoin jumps to the $63,000 level to kick off the week black Rock’s Larry fin tells CNBC he’s now a quote major believer that there’s a role for Bitcoin in portfolios and former FBI special agent Jason hog discusses the spike in crypto ATM schemes welcome to cnbc’s crypto world I’m Jordan Smith crypto prices in the green to start the week with Bitcoin trading back above $60,000 as of new Eastern the cryptocurrency shot up near nearly 5% to the $63,000 level as markets see increased odds of an election victory for the presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump who’s been vocal about his Rising support for crypto ether climbed more than 5.5% to $3,369 and salana advanced about 5% to $153 Crypt Focus stocks also saw a bump this morning with coinbase jumping nearly 11% and micro strategy soaring nearly 15% as of midday Bitcoin miners saw big gains too with Riot Rising nearly 9% and clean spark and Marathon digital both surging more than 11% now last week Bitcoin was trading below the $60,000 level but cryptocurrency’s value has risen since the failed assassination attempt of trump on Saturday investors see an increased chance of a trump victory in the upcoming presidential election impacting a range of markets including crypto the former president has recently positioned himself as the crypto-friendly candidate with his campaign announcing in May that it was accepting crypto donations also Trump is scheduled to speak at the Bitcoin conference in Nashville next week all right let’s talk about the top stories Black Rock CEO Larry f says Bitcoin has a potential to be a way for everyday investors to guard against significant government turmoil the head of the world’s largest asset manager told cnbc’s Squawk on the street this morning that he sees a future for Bitcoin after previously being a proud skeptic of the cryptocurrency I studied it learned about it and I came away saying okay you know my opinion 5 years ago is wrong here’s my opinion stated this is what I believe in today I believe the opportunity today I believe Bitcoin is legitimate I’m not trying to say there’s not bet misuses like everything else but it is a legitimate Financial instrument that allows you to have maybe uncorrelated non-correlated type of returns I believe it is an instrument that you invest in when you’re more frightened though it is an instrument when you believe that Co countries are debasing their currency de debasing their currency by excess deficits and some countries are I believe we have um countries where you’re frightened of your everyday existence and have an opportunity to invest in in something that is outside your country’s uh you know control then you can have more financial control and so I’m a a major believer that there is a role for Bitcoin in in portfolios I believe you’re going to see that as an as one of the asset classes that we all look at now Black Rock has become a significant player in crypto in fact the firm’s ey shares Bitcoin trust has raked in more than $18 billion since its launch in January making it the largest Bitcoin ETF The Firm has also filed to potentially launch an ether ETF and we’re expected to learn if those products will get the green light to start trading in the US any day now next tornado cash co-founder alexe perv who was found guilty of money laundering a couple of months ago was denied bail by a Dutch Court that’s according to international news Outlet DL News which reported on Friday that a court of appeals in the Netherlands ruled that the developer behind the crypto mixer will continue to be detained and will not be allowed to access a computer internet or data according to DL News pv’s lawyer says he needs to be out on bail so that he could prepare to appeal his guilty verdict but that the court argued that his continued detention should not obstruct his ability to prepare his defense perv was reportedly sentenced to more than 5 years behind bars for laundering hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen and hacked crypto through the tornado cash crypto mixer last a major Cambodian payments firm reportedly received crypto worth more than $150,000 from a wallet used by North Korean hacking group last Aus that’s according to Reuters which cited blockchain data reviewed by the news Outlet ku1 pay which offers currency exchange repayments and remittance Services reportedly received the crypto between June 2023 and February of this year the funds came from an anonymous digital wallet that was used by Lazarus to deposit funds stolen from three crypto companies in June and July of 2023 mostly via fishing attacks Reuters reports the company had not known it received funds indirectly from the hacks inide of the multiple transactions between its wallet and the source of the hack as the reason it was unaware in August of last year the FBI warned crypto companies of blockchain activity connected to the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto that the agency identified that the crypto was stolen by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s Affiliated actors known as Lazarus group and ap38 all right turning to the rise in crypto ATM scams for our main story I spoke with cyber security expert Jason hog who is an executive and Residence at the private Equity Firm Great Hills partner and a former FBI special agent about the growing Trend he breaks down why criminals are targeting crypto ATMs and the challenges associated with recovering the stolen funds all right thank you so much for being here crypto ATMs have been a topic for us on crypto world in the past last year we explored the growth of them around the globe and at the time the number of installations had actually slowed but um heading into 2024 coin ATM radar shows that installations Are Climbing once again and I’m I’m wondering if you can talk about the growth of this industry and particularly the trend of criminals using them to scam people or launder money absolutely and uh thanks for having me on the um the thing that we’re seeing is there’s three prevailing Trends um the first is that uh QR code manipulation is becoming a thing um this is where the fraudsters are taking the uh QR code on the screen replacing or overlaying the legitimate QR code with their own and then they’re redirecting the uh the crypto transfers to their own addresses um like you said as the ATM machines are becoming more prolific so are fake crypto ATMs and the fake crypto ATMs are designed solely for the purpose of capturing people’s private Keys um and then the other thing is we’re seeing with the rise of crypto ATMs uh yet another example of social engineering where frauders are impersonating authorities to get people’s private Keys you mentioned there how they’re manipulating the stuff that’s happening on the screens or around these ATMs with QR codes and it makes me think about um one of the things we covered at the time when we were looking at ATMs was um a lot of them were implementing warnings or some s of sort of sign to uh tell people about scams or elicit transactions um how effective do you think ATM operators themselves have been at stopping criminal activity and and how does that compare to something like say a money gram or a Western Union and and how they combat scams because a lot of times you go into these stores and they have you know pretty apparent warnings and you know the people working there are pretty clear about avoiding scams right for me I sum it up in two words independent confirmation I think it’s you know really important for the consumer to take it upon themselves um warnings and things that look real and are official uh sort of only get it uh part way I think first you need to check and validate from the crypto Community uh or official company websites the ATM themselves or the location the ATM second I think it’s very important to double check the QR code details on the ATM screen and and that the address matches before you actually complete a transaction uh and then lastly I mean you should approach this generally um being skeptical of anything that’s an unsolicited U request or a link uh for private information and we as consumers need to make sure that we’re independently cooperating things and reaching out uh on our own to official Channel or websites to make sure uh that these are actually legitimate locations there there goes to a question I had for you about you know whether this is a regulation problem or if this is an education problem and and it sounds like you know you’re mentioning ways that people can be more aware do where do you feel like we are in terms of educating the public on on how these ATMs work but also how these scams proliferate I think I think we’re in the second inning uh of the game uh it’s very early right now and I think what ends up happening is that often times the technology ends up actually accelerating faster than the regulations and law enforcement can keep up and so fraudsters are operating in an unrestricted manner so they’re doing everything that they can without any rules uh in order to perpetrate a fraud and so it takes a little bit of time for uh law enforcement and the regulations to catch up uh to put systems and and also uh different techniques in place place to combat the fraudsters keeping with that that idea of law enforcement how prepared are they for this kind of of crime I’m thinking about this because there was a body cam video that went viral just the other day of a police officer stopping a woman from sending you know tens of thousands of dollars in Bitcoin to a scammer on the phone pretending to be her bank um as these crimes become more common do you feel like law enforcement on the local or national level are prepared for this I think that they’re constantly in a process of learning and then educating the public the good news is that this is just the next Evolution financial fraud crime etm fraud has been around since the 1980s uh when they were originally uh put into place at Mass scale and so the good news is we’re not starting from scratch here but rather uh getting caught up on what the latest techniques are and what frauds are doing so it’s a constant iterative process and it’s it’s a constant battle final question about industry cooperation you know on the show we’ve talked with blockchain analytics firms chain analysis comes to mind about how they track down criminal activity on the blockchain do you think that there’s enough cooperation between the industry through these analytics firms and crypto exchanges and law enforcement to help recover funds I think that it’s getting much much better if you look back only 10 years five years even um it was the wild west and there wasn’t much collaboration going on people weren’t cross-pollinating ideas now information sharing is getting much better and people see fraud being perpetrated in a particular vertical uh or industry and they’re communicating it and then coming up with remediation steps so it’s it’s going to continue to evolve but we are leap years ahead of where we were only five years ago all right that’s all for crypto world today we’re back again tomorrow and we’ll see you then [Music]

CNBC Crypto World features the latest news and daily trading updates from the digital currency markets and provides viewers with a look at what’s ahead with high-profile interviews, explainers, and unique stories from the ever-changing crypto industry. On today’s show, Jason Hogg, former FBI special agent and founder of Matunuck Group, discusses the rise in crypto ATM scams.

Chapters:
00:00 – CNBC Crypto World, July 15, 2024
0:23 – Bitcoin rises
1:30 – The headlines
5:07 – Former FBI agent Jason Hogg

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BlackRock CEO Larry Fink ‘major believer’ there’s role for bitcoin in portfolios: CNBC Crypto World