coindesk.com
Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget is in talks with a number of the world's largest financial institutions about expanding their digital asset presence in Asia, its CEO told CoinDesk.
Gracy Chen highlighted BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, as one example of such a firm seeking to expand distribution of their tokenized exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the region.
“I'm talking to all the Wall Street giants to understand where they are coming from and how we could collaborate," she told CoinDesk in an interview. "We have veryclose communication with BlackRock, for example, in terms of our distribution in the Asia market.”
A BlackRock spokesperson said the firm’s crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) are already available in Asia and confirmed that it regularly engage with a broad range of participants across the ecosystem. The firm, however, declined to comment on any particular expansion plans in Asia, in a response to CoinDesk's request for comment.
Asia is playing an increasingly significant part in global crypto markets, with a growth rate of 69% year-on-year in blockchain-based crypto-asset transactions as of June 2025, the highest growth rate across all regions, an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report revealed.
BlackRock, which manages $15.3 trillion in client assets, has expanded its tokenized cash offerings with new blockchain-based money market products. Its head of digital assets, Robert Mitchnick, said last week that the macro case for bitcoin is strengthening.
BlackRock has been building its digital-asset presence in Asia. During Consensus Hong Kong 2026, Nicholas Peach, head of BlackRock’s APAC iShares division, said that even a 1% allocation to crypto in Asia could drive nearly $2 trillion in inflows into the market. Peach based the calculation on an estimated $108 trillion of household wealth in Asia.
The firm announced a new digital-assets role in Singapore in December, saying the hire would influence its strategy across Asia and identify first-mover opportunities in the region.
Bitget has 125 million registered users globally, with roughly half based in East and Southeast Asia, Chen noted.
More than half of Bitget's users, 52% according to the company's own Q1 2026 data, already hold both crypto and traditional stocks, Chen said, making crypto exchanges a potential distribution point for asset managers trying to reach investors who no longer separate the two asset classes.
Coinbase serves as custodian for the majority of BlackRock's bitcoin and Ethereum ETPs in the U.S., Keith Grose, Coinbase's UK CEO, told CoinDesk separately. "Players like BlackRock are leading the way," Grose said. "They were the first to launch a Bitcoin at-scale ETP, and now they also have large funds onchain."