The head of digital assets at BlackRock, the world’s largest asset-management company, has been actively involved in educating pension funds, endowments, and sovereign wealth funds about the new spot bitcoin ETF products.
Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock’s head of digital assets, cautioned against interpreting the recent break in inflows into spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as a sign of waning interest. According to him, this temporary pause is likely to be followed by a surge of interest from a different category of investors.
Mitchnick anticipates that in the coming months, financial institutions such as sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and endowments will begin trading in spot ETFs. He highlighted a growing interest among institutional investors in allocating to bitcoin (BTC) and considering it from a portfolio construction perspective.
He emphasized that BlackRock has been engaged in ongoing conversations with various interested firms, including pensions, endowments, sovereign wealth funds, insurers, asset managers, and family offices, providing education and guidance on bitcoin. This interest from institutional investors is not new, as BlackRock has been discussing bitcoin with these institutions for several years.
The much-anticipated ETFs have generated significant pent-up demand, accumulating over $76 billion across these products since their approval in January. Currently, some registered investment advisors (RIAs) are offering BlackRock’s IBIT ETF on an unsolicited basis. The next anticipated step is the unrestricted offering of bitcoin ETFs to clients by large wealth advisory firms like Morgan Stanley.
