By George Glover

Cryptocurrencies including XRP and Bitcoin were edging lower on Thursday -- but those losses won't mean much if institutional investors carry on buying up the tokens, according to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.

XRP, which is used to facilitate and settle transactions in Ripple Labs' digital-payments platform, was down 1.4% to $3.11 over the past 24 hours, according to data from the crypto exchange Kraken. It's now up about 520% since Donald Trump won the presidential election in November.

Bitcoin slipped 3% to $102,106, per Kraken data, meaning the world's largest token by market capitalization was trading 7% off the record high it hit earlier this week.

Investors likely see this week as a chance to lock in short-term profit, capitalizing on the excitement that drove cryptos higher in the run-up to Trump's inauguration. Having previously dismissed Bitcoin as a "scam against the dollar," the 47th President voiced his support for digital assets on the campaign trail.

Another person to go from skeptic to advocate is BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. He said in 2018 that the asset manager's clients had zero interest in crypto, but on Wednesday laid out a scenario where Bitcoin could soar to $700,000 as institutional investors pile into vehicles like BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF.

"I was with a sovereign-wealth fund during this week, and there was a conversation, should we have a 2% allocation? Should we have a 5% allocation? If everybody adopted that conversation, it would be $500,000, $600,000, $700,000 for Bitcoin," Fink said at a World Economic Forum panel in Davos. He added that his comments didn't mean he was promoting investing in the crypto.

Write to George Glover at george.glover@dowjones.com

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January 23, 2025 05:39 ET (10:39 GMT)

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