Institutions Ditch Altcoins for Bitcoin and Ether
Speaking at the Digital Asset Summit in New York on March 24, BlackRock's head of digital assets, Robbie Mitchnick, declared that institutional investor interest has decisively narrowed to Bitcoin and Ethereum. He stated that the high turnover among top tokens has led clients to view the vast majority of cryptocurrencies as irrelevant for long-term allocation, dismissing them as short-lived and largely “nonsense.”
This marks a significant shift from strategies that sought broad exposure to the digital asset market. According to Mitchnick, clients are no longer building wide portfolios of smaller assets. Instead, institutional capital is consolidating around Bitcoin and, to a lesser extent, Ethereum, which have consistently maintained their positions. This concentrated focus reflects a maturing market where utility and staying power are prized over speculative potential.
AI Provides New Utility Case for Crypto Assets
BlackRock is repositioning crypto's primary value proposition, arguing that its most significant future role is as infrastructure for the artificial intelligence economy. Mitchnick stressed that AI is a much larger and more impactful technological wave than digital assets, but the two have a crucial intersection. He framed crypto as “computer-native money” and AI as “computer-native data and intelligence,” creating a natural and necessary synergy.
This perspective reframes digital assets from a speculative class into a foundational technology layer. The argument posits that as AI agents become more autonomous, they will require a native financial system for transactions, which traditional payment rails are ill-equipped to provide.
AI agents are very unlikely to use, you know, Fedwire and SWIFT.
— Robbie Mitchnick, Head of Digital Assets, BlackRock
Bitcoin Miners Pivot to Capture AI Demand
Evidence of this convergence is already emerging as publicly traded Bitcoin miners pivot to service the high-performance computing demands of the AI sector. Companies including Hut 8 (HUT), Core Scientific (CORZ), and Iren (IREN) are repurposing their data centers and signing hosting deals for AI workloads, which offer steadier revenue streams than crypto mining alone. This strategic shift provides tangible proof of the commercial link between the two industries.
Furthermore, Mitchnick suggested that Bitcoin could serve as a unique portfolio diversifier in an era of rapid, AI-driven technological disruption. As artificial intelligence reshapes entire industries and creates economic uncertainty, Bitcoin’s role as a decentralized and scarce asset may become increasingly attractive for investors seeking to hedge against systemic change.
