Most of BlackRock’s institutional clients who invest in Bitcoin don’t factor scenarios involving BTC’s use as a global payment instrument into their strategies.
Robbie Mitchnick, Global Head of Digital Assets at BlackRock, the world’s largest international investment company by AUM, said that the firm’s institutional clients still primarily see Bitcoin as “digital gold” and a store-of-value instrument.
Mitchnick noted that the idea of mass, everyday BTC payments remains more of an additional but unlikely option rather than a core investment thesis. According to him, a significant technological leap would be required to change professional investors’ current attitude toward BTC, including improvements in the network’s scalability and the development of solutions based on the Lightning Network.
In addition to institutions’ cautious stance on Bitcoin’s payment function, Mitchnick also highlighted the rapid growth of the stablecoin sector. He pointed out that stable assets are an efficient means of transferring value, which is why they became widely used in settlements. They also have the potential to scale into retail transfers, corporate and international payments, as well as financial market settlements. Mitchnick believes Bitcoin still has a chance to compete with stablecoins in the segment of retail cross-border money transfers. However, in his view, such a development is currently more “speculative” than reflective of real-world conditions.
Recently, a new institutional BitcoinFi platform entered the market, offering the ability to obtain loans secured by Bitcoin.
