Talking from the Nakamoto Stage on the Bitcoin 2025 Convention, Robert Mitchnick, Head of Digital Belongings at BlackRock, made a compelling case for BTC’s distinctive place in world finance—suggesting that the world’s largest asset supervisor sees Bitcoin not solely as a reliable portfolio hedge but in addition as a superior different to gold.
Mitchnick described the efficiency of BlackRock’s iShares BTC Belief (IBIT) as “unprecedented,” however emphasised that this was nonetheless the early stage of adoption. “It’s very early in the life cycle of an ETF,” he mentioned. “In many instances, it takes multiple years to truly get all the cylinders firing—from education to institutional diligence to onboarding across major wealth platforms.”
Bitcoin Over Gold
Whereas IBIT has already gained large traction in US markets, BlackRock has just lately launched an identical product in Europe and sees world growth as important. “We’re excited,” Mitchnick mentioned. “This has really been a global story… even if you look at IBIT’s numbers, a massive amount of that actually comes from offshore wealth channels, including Asia.”
A key theme of Mitchnick’s remarks was the rising institutional normalization of BTC. He cited BlackRock’s personal mannequin portfolios—broadly utilized by wealth managers—as a turning level. “In February of this year, just about three months ago, one of those portfolios added Bitcoin as an allocation in the 1 to 2% range,” Mitchnick mentioned. “That was not a sudden reaction to any one thing—that was the result of multiple years of analysis and research.” These allocations, he defined, enable monetary advisers to incorporate BTC with out requiring direct consumer demand, accelerating passive adoption throughout advisory networks.
Mitchnick pushed again laborious in opposition to the long-standing declare that BTC merely behaves like a speculative tech inventory. “Through most of Bitcoin’s history, it’s had very low correlation [to equities],” he famous. Whereas he acknowledged intervals of short-term alignment—significantly amongst leveraged retail merchants—he argued that institutional traders see BTC in a different way: “They view Bitcoin as a differentiator in a portfolio and a potential hedge against some of the left-tail risks that exist elsewhere in traditional assets.”
He illustrated the purpose with a pointy anecdote: “Think back to August 5th… the market had a mini meltdown and Bitcoin got clobbered that day. It had nothing to do with Bitcoin fundamentally… but Bitcoin doubled over the next four months.” In response to Mitchnick, this exhibits how short-term volatility typically results in accumulation by long-term holders—those that view Bitcoin not as a “risk-on asset” however as a financial hedge.
Requested immediately concerning the ongoing gold-versus-BTC debate, Mitchnick prevented the everyday zero-sum framing. “They’re both global, scarce, decentralized, fixed-supply assets,” he mentioned. “Gold has much less volatility and a longer history. But Bitcoin is digitally native, efficient to store, and can be transferred anywhere in near real time at near-zero cost.” Then he delivered the decision: “Bitcoin has much higher upside than gold—and lower downside.”
He additionally addressed why this narrative isn’t extra dominant. “It’s amazing to me that the industry hasn’t promoted this more effectively,” he mentioned, criticizing monetary media and analysis companies that also hyperlink BTC’s worth to irrelevant macro headlines. “Bitcoin’s never heard of tariffs. Doesn’t know what they are.”
When requested about future crypto ETFs past Bitcoin and Ethereum, Mitchnick drew a agency line. “Bitcoin is in a category of one,” he mentioned. “The rest of crypto competes in different lanes, with different use cases… it looks more like tech equities or venture exposure.” In consequence, he expects the correlation between BTC and different digital belongings to fall additional.
On the subject of regulation, Mitchnick welcomed the rising bipartisan curiosity in Washington. “It’s just a great and encouraging thing that there is such momentum behind developing a regulatory framework,” he mentioned. “Whether we’re talking about stablecoins or market structure, there’s great momentum there—and we’re excited to see how that shakes out.”
At press time, BTC traded at $108,879.
Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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