BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink used his annual letter to shareholders to argue that digital assets and tokens can help update the financial system, even as he warned that the US economic model is leaving too many people behind.
In the letter, Fink said the current system has given most of its benefits to those who already own property, while locking many workers out of market growth. He linked that imbalance to a broader problem in the US, where rising inequality, high government debt and weak participation in capital markets are putting pressure on old models of finance.
“Capitalism is working—just not for enough people,” Fink wrote.
Their proposed solution focuses on tokenization and digital distribution as tools to increase access to investments and better run markets.
Tokenization could “update the pipeline of the financial system” by making it easier to issue, trade and access investments, Fink said.
The idea is simple: Transferring fund shares, bonds or other securities can be faster and cheaper if ownership of assets is recorded on a digital ledger. In practice, this would allow a regulated digital wallet to hold not only payments, but also fractional interests in assets such as tokenized bonds, ETFs and infrastructure or private debt.
“Half of the world’s population has a digital wallet on their phone,” Fink wrote. “Imagine if the same digital wallet could let you invest in a broader mix of companies for the long term – as easily as sending payments.”
Fink compared tokenization today to the Internet in 1996, arguing that it would not replace traditional finance overnight, but could gradually connect old and new systems. He said policymakers should focus on building that bridge “as quickly and safely as possible” and called for clearer buyer protections, counterparty-risk standards and digital identity checks to reduce illicit finance risks.
The comments add to BlackRock’s broader contributions to digital assets. In the same letter, Fink cited approximately $150 billion of assets tied to digital markets and said the company had built “early leadership” in this area.
BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) is the world’s largest token fund, and the company also manages $65 billion in stablecoin reserves and approximately $80 billion in digital asset exchange-traded products.
Nevertheless, most of the letters focused on the deep stresses in the US financial system. Fink warned that banks, corporations and governments can no longer finance major economic transformations on their own, especially as the country tries to rebuild manufacturing capacity, expand energy supplies and compete in artificial intelligence.
They also argued that Social Security remains an important safety net, but may require structural reform, including some exposure to long-term market returns, to remain sustainable.
For Fink, tokenization sits inside that bigger picture. This is not a bet on publicity, but a bet that better rail can help more people become investors rather than spectators.
His overarching message was that finance needs an upgrade, and digital assets can be part of that overhaul.