Is BlackRock Looking To Build a Blockchain?
A new job posting from the company suggests that it intends to build a b. A recent job posting from BlackRock shows that the company is looking to build a new blockchain-specific strategy for its portfolio management system, Aladdin. Dont miss out on how smart money is playing the crypto game. Subscribe to our premium newsletter - Crypto Investor. The new position is for a "Director, Engineering Lead of Digital Assets & Blockchain Distributed Ledger Technology." The responsibilities of the role include evaluating and developing a roadmap for blockchain tech on the Aladdin platform. Aladdin stands for asset, liability, debt and derivatives investment network and is essentially the automated operating system of BlackRock. It handles measuring risk and making trades. This new job posting may suggest that BlackRock wants to incorporate some sort of blockchain or distributed ledger within Aladdin. The list of responsibilities also says that the role will need to "evaluate different blockchain protocols/platforms to explore solution alternatives" as well as "serve as a trusted technical and architectural advisor to deliver solutions in partnership with business teams and technology." This role will manage a team of developers and lead the "build-out of the firms competencies in emerging future state blockchain-based architectures, including tokenization." This may also hint at BlackRock wanting to tokenize more traditional assets in the stock market should it build its own blockchain. The CIO of Bitwise, Matthew Hougan, has recently called Aladdin BlackRock's "crown jewel" and that it is "the tech hub of modern finance.  Aladdin is the secret sauce that makes BlackRock tick, its a software tool that managers use to analyze, interpret and work with the capital markets," he added. Should BlackRock implement a blockchain with Aladdin, it would unlock a plethora of features, including tokenization of securities. The role requires a "deep technical understanding of leading blockchain protocols, strengths and limitations" and "strong experience designing, developing, and operating resilient and scalable distributed systems." It also calls for a "solid understanding of cryptography, encryption and automation." A spokesperson for BlackRock said that the new hire will help to increase the company's focus on blockchain. Were hiring an engineering lead for distributed ledger technology to build out our expertise and execution capabilities in the distributed ledger technology space. While we have engineers working in the distributed ledger technology space today, this hire will allow us to increase our focus and capacity.