HBAR sinks 32% as BlackRock says it has ‘no commercial relationship’ with Hedera.

A representative from BlackRock has confirmed that the company was not directly involved in the decision of Archax and Ownera to tokenize shares of BlackRock's ICS Treasury Fund on Hedera. 

BlackRock has stated that it does not have a commercial relationship with Hedera and did not choose Hedera Hashgraph to tokenize any of its funds, including the $22 billion money market fund.

Following the announcement by the HBAR Foundation on X, the HBAR token experienced a significant rally of over 100% on Tuesday. 

This announcement stated that blockchain firms Archax and Ownera had tokenized BlackRock's ICS U.S. Treasury Fund on Hedera. 

However, it should be clarified that BlackRock did not play an active role in the tokenization effort, as confirmed by a BlackRock spokesperson to Blocksky.

The spokesperson emphasized that BlackRock has no commercial relationship with Hedera and has not selected Hedera to tokenize any of its funds. 

At the time of writing, the HBAR token has experienced a decline of 32.8% in the past 24 hours, falling to $0.118 from its peak of $0.176 at 5:00 am UTC on April 24, according to CoinGecko.

The spokesperson added that BlackRock will communicate directly with the public regarding the development of their digital asset strategy, as they have done in the past. 

The announcement from the HBAR Foundation has gained significant traction, accumulating over 2.9 million views and 3,200 reposts in just over 36 hours. However, it has been misinterpreted by some cryptocurrency influencers.

One such influencer, Mason Versluis, claimed to his 189,000 X followers that "BLACKROCK JUST TOKENIZED ONE OF THEIR MONEY MARKET FUNDS ON HEDERA.

" Archax CEO Graham Rodford later clarified on X that it was their firm's decision to put shares of BlackRock's money market fund on Hedera. 

However, Rodford stated that BlackRock was aware of Archax's tokenization of the fund's shares.

During an interview with crypto YouTuber Jesus Martinez, Rodford further explained the situation. 

He stated that Archax had clients who wanted to invest in the BlackRock money market fund, and as a result, they opened an account at BlackRock to facilitate this. 

Archax informed BlackRock of their intention to tokenize the fund, and as a courtesy, they asked BlackRock to review the press release. 

BlackRock provided their input, but Archax has been leading the project.

Despite the temporary price increase, the HBAR token is still down by over 78% from its all-time high of $0.57 in September 2021, according to CoinGecko.