At the Bitcoin Conference held on July 25 in Nashville, Tennessee, Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock's head of digital assets, shared the asset management giant's perspective on the current state of interest in cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
During a panel discussion titled "From Strategy to Innovation: BlackRock's Bitcoin Journey," Mitchnick highlighted that BlackRock's clients predominantly favor Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), indicating a minimal demand for other digital assets.
"I would say that our client base today, their interest overwhelmingly is in Bitcoin first, and then somewhat in ETH <…> and there's very little interest today beyond those two," he stated.
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Earlier this year, BlackRock introduced its first crypto ETFs: iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) in January and iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) in July. Mitchnick noted that the company does not anticipate a significant expansion in the variety of crypto ETFs.
He also pointed out that when clients invest in ETH ETFs, they typically do so to supplement their existing crypto portfolio rather than to replace BTC holdings, explaining:
The whole store of value use case within crypto is pretty definitively territory that Bitcoin owns. ETH is trying to do a bunch of different applications that, for the most part, Bitcoin is not trying to do. So, really, they're more complements than they are competitors or substitutes.
Looking ahead, Mitchnick anticipates that investors might allocate around 20% of their crypto holdings to Ethereum, with the majority continuing to be invested in Bitcoin.
Contrasting BlackRock's cautious stance, VanEck, which also offers BTC and ETH ETFs, recently filed for a Solana ETF.
Thus, while BlackRock remains cautious about expanding its cryptocurrency ETF offerings beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum, the industry continues to explore new opportunities.
