Bitget says it is talking to BlackRock about tokenized ETFs in Asia

Bitget chief executive Gracy Chen told CoinDesk the exchange has been in close communication with BlackRock about distribution in Asia, including tokenized exchange-traded funds. BlackRock confirmed its exchange-traded products already sell in Asia and that it talks to virtual asset service providers, and it declined to comment on any specific plan. Neither side described a signed agreement.

What each side brings

BlackRock manages $11.6 trillion for clients and needs shelf space in front of Asian retail investors. Bitget, registered in the Seychelles, has more than 125 million registered users, roughly half of them in East and Southeast Asia, and says more than half of them already hold traditional stocks. Tokenized assets account for about 40% of the exchange's trading volume.

Where the idea started

Chen met BlackRock chief operating officer Rob Goldstein in New York in May 2026 and pitched what she calls the 10% Vision.

“Reality is built around Bitget's 10% vision: by 2030, nearly 10% of financial assets could exist in tokenized form.”

— Gracy Chen, CEO, Bitget, CoinGape, 27 May 2026

Quote source: CoinGape, 27 May 2026

The pitch points at Asian household wealth, which runs to roughly $108 trillion. Nicholas Peach, who heads Asia-Pacific iShares at BlackRock, has said a 1% shift in Asian portfolios toward crypto would bring close to $2 trillion of new inflows.

Those two figures use different bases, so they do not multiply into each other. One counts household wealth across the region, the other counts the portfolios BlackRock measures. They are two separate claims about the same appetite, not one calculation.

The conditions attached

A tokenized ETF is a token that tracks a fund share and settles on a blockchain, which lets it change hands outside exchange trading hours. The holder's rights depend on the wrapper: the token is issued against the fund rather than being the fund share itself, and that structure is the first thing a regulator examines.

A tokenized ETF sold through an exchange app is a regulated product moving through a channel that regulators license market by market, and the licence sits with whoever distributes it. Bitget has been assembling those permissions in pieces, including the licensed base in Bhutan we covered last month. Asia is not one jurisdiction, and Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan each answer this question differently.

The second open question is who owns the customer. Putting iShares products inside a crypto app gives BlackRock reach and gives Bitget legitimacy, and neither side has said who would hold the client record.

The tokenization thesis has been running ahead of its evidence for two years. We wrote on Monday that Coinbase's version of this pitch is a thesis without a track record. Bitget's version has a bigger user base attached to it and the same missing piece: a signed counterparty.

None of this should be read as personalized investment advice.