You Won’t Believe What the UAE Is Hoarding—And BlackRock Is Laughing All the Way to the Bank 😳💰

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  • Bitcoin, now more valuable than a Moscow flat during the NEP, flirts shamelessly with $100K—sending institutional types into a frenzy that could rival Margarita at the ball. 🌪️
  • The UAE’s sovereign wealth funds, apparently not content with gold or oil, are now stuffing their vaults with Bitcoin. Next step: trading camels for cold wallets? 🐫💼

Is it sorcery? Is it the Devil’s work? Or is it simply the world’s favorite digital coin, Bitcoin [BTC], which has slipped past the mystical $100,000 barrier and landed artfully at $103,558.88—a number high enough to make even Woland smile in bemusement. Gains of 0.33% in a day, and 7.91% for the week, according to the esteemed prophets at CoinMarketCap.

If you thought this was just a bunch of Moscow magicians gambling away their roubles, think again. Behind the curtain, powerful institutions and entire nations are now adding Bitcoin to their treasure troves. The age of paper rubles—pardon me, dollars—may soon be as quaint as a Moscow tram ticket.

BlackRock’s Bitcoin Binge—Or, How to Hoard Digital Rubles and Impress Your Fellow Bankers

Who leads this parade? None other than BlackRock, that grand sorcerer of Wall Street, whose spot Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, continues to guzzle capital like Behemoth at a tea party. On 9th May, $356.2 million was poured in, as reported by the oracles at Farside Investors. That’s what I call a banking séance.

For 19 days—yes, nineteen—they’ve had inflows without pause. That’s more consistency than an apparatchik’s morning kvass. Investors, it seems, now trust in Bitcoin as much as they trust in bureaucratic paperwork—perhaps more so, given Bitcoin never asks for notarization.

The flirting began in earnest on 14th April, resulting in a love affair exceeding $1.03 billion in just the past week. Oh, the passion! Meanwhile, Bitcoin itself was tumbling and twirling between $83,152 and $103,000, swirling in the marketplace like Margarita at Satan’s side.

On 23rd April, something magical happened: Bitcoin reclaimed $90,000, shedding its humbler cloak and striding toward $100,000, which it finally breached on the 8th of May—for the first time since the snow melted in February. BlackRock’s enchanted inflow streak has now exceeded its January record, set during President Donald Trump’s inauguration—demonstrating that, in finance, as on Lent, the fasts are growing longer and the feasts: more extravagant.

But my friends, it is not merely Wall Street that is under Bitcoin’s spell. The sovereigns are coming—cloaked, mysterious, and undeniably wealthy.

Nations, Oil Barons, and Bitcoin: The Party Nobody Wants to Miss

Michael Bucella of Neoclassic Capital, who knows a thing or two about magic tricks, recently whispered to CNBC about Bitcoin’s uncanny knack to worm its way into macro-economic discussions—like a sly tomcat at Berlioz’s picnic.

In Bucella’s own words:

“The UAE, alongside many other nations, are buying Bitcoin as a reserve asset.”

Such confessions, while less scandalous than Margarita’s infamous night, are enough to make bankers clutch their ledgers with sweaty hands. Since Mr. Trump’s surprise act on the world stage, this odd, utopian digital coin has found eager new patrons in the halls of oil money and gilded elevators.

And what of OKX MENA’s CEO, Rifad Mahasneh? He, too, weighs in on the festivities—somewhat less poetic, but nonetheless revealing:

“I think the Middle East region obviously is home to many of the world’s leading sovereign funds. Most have been looking at how could they enter this space in the most regulated and risk-controlled manner. I think when they’re evaluating entry into the crypto space, each sovereign fund has its own policies and risk controls that they need to monitor.”

The point? While bureaucrats are busy calculating the best regulation for imaginary coins, nations big and small are finding there’s a certain magic—and not a little mischief—in Bitcoin. Perhaps one day, all the world’s fortunes will fit in a cold wallet under someone’s pillow, and the Master will laugh as the bankers squabble beneath the full moon.

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2025-05-11 03:16