BlackRock – the world’s largest asset manager – is collaborating with the U.S. government to sell off eleven figures worth of securities tied up with American banks that failed last month. 

The sale $114 billion sale will include $27 billion worth of securities from Signature Bank, and $87 billion from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). 

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced the sale on Wednesday, over three weeks after placing both Signature and SVB into receivership following a run on deposits in March. 

The FDIC tapped BlackRock to orchestrate the sale, which is intended to be “gradual and orderly” so as not to disturb the market, by taking daily liquidity and trading conditions into account. 

BlackRock holds $10 trillion in assets under management, outsizing all rivals including Vanguard Group ($7.2 trillion) and Fidelity Investments ($4.5 trillion). Both Blackrock and Fidelity have involved themselves with Bitcoin in some capacity, with the former partnering with Coinbase to launch a Bitcoin trust fund, and the latter allowing investors to add Bitcoin to their retirement 401(k) plans.   

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has suggested that blockchain tokenization could help drive a more efficient payments system, so long as they’re regulated properly. 

(by Andrew Throuvalas)