Welcome to the Wild World of On-Chain Donations to BlackRock
After launching its first-ever tokenized asset fund on Ethereum earlier this week, BlackRock is quickly getting acquainted with life on-chain—and all the weird and wonderful things associated with it. Crypto users have been sending welcome gifts to a wallet associated with—but apparently not controlled by—the Wall Street behemoth, including genitalia-themed NFTs and funds tied to a blacklisted service the U.S. government has claimed aids state-sponsored terrorism.
An Ethereum wallet associated with BlackRock’s $100 million USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), which will offer investors expanded access to on-chain offerings, has received numerous crypto and NFT donations since launching earlier this week. Ethereum NFTs donated to the wallet include those from collections CryptoDickButts, CryptoTitVag, Goblintown, and Larva Chads.
To celebrate @BlackRock’s new $100M on-chain fund, CryptoDickbutts #2224 aka “BlackRock” has been sent to the entity’s on-chain balance sheet.
As with any other BlackRock-owned asset, the math checks out. pic.twitter.com/QbDTRHRBY2— zhivkoto (@zhivkoto) March 20, 2024
While such graphic gestures might be considered beneath the world’s largest asset manager, they are, in many cases, no laughing matter. CryptoDickButt NFTs, for example, are currently worth 0.59 ETH, or $1,979 a piece—at minimum—according to CoinGecko. Other donations sent to the BlackRock-linked wallet include dozens of payments of precisely 0.000069 USDC, sent by a friendly user called big-dick-fink.eth—the name being a subtle allusion to the reproductive organ of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. Sums of several novel cryptocurrencies—including popular meme coin PEPE and lesser-known creations like BlackCock, Inc., PussyNoodle, Jesus Coin, and HarryPotterTrumpHomerSimpson777Inu—also found their way into the wallet.
Then, of course, there are the thousands of dollars worth of ETH sent to the wallet from TornadoCash, the Treasury Department-blacklisted crypto mixer that it is now illegal to affiliate with under federal law. That’s due to the privacy-oriented service’s alleged connections to money laundering, North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, Iran, and several organizations around the world labeled terrorist organizations by the United States.
All in all, crypto tokens sent unsolicitedly to the BlackRock-affiliated wallet are collectively worth tens of thousands of dollars. While BlackRock should certainly be flattered by such gestures, it’s hardly the first major corporation or entity to receive unsolicited on-chain donations after its wallet address is disseminated online. In 2021, Budweiser received untold numbers of penile, mammary, and scatological crypto assets after launching an NFT acquisition initiative. The nation of El Salvador, which holds hundreds of millions of dollars worth of BTC, has similarly received many bizarre and delightful Ordinals in its Bitcoin wallet.
Part of the allure of trolling mainstream players with absurd on-chain donations is that—due to the nature of blockchain networks—such transactions cannot be rejected by the recipient. The assets are immediately deposited in an entity’s wallet and can only from there be burned or transferred.
It’s unclear as of yet what the Wall Street titan plans to do with its newfound trove of illegally laundered crypto, meme coins, and explicit on-chain artwork. But if BlackRock’s BUIDL fund constituted a genuine desire on the firm’s part to climb down from the sanitized world of crypto ETFs into the belly of true on-chain commerce, it appears that mission has already been largely accomplished.
🔥 Hot Take: The Quirky Side of On-Chain Donations
BlackRock’s foray into the world of tokenized assets on Ethereum has brought them more than they bargained for. The unsolicited donations pouring into their affiliated wallet range from valuable NFTs to cryptocurrency associated with blacklisted services. While these donations may seem amusing, they highlight an interesting aspect of blockchain networks—the inability to reject transactions. Other entities like Budweiser and El Salvador have also experienced similar encounters with bizarre on-chain donations. It remains to be seen how BlackRock will handle this unconventional windfall, but it’s clear that their venture into on-chain commerce has already made an impact.
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