Hassan Maishera
TL;DR
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BlackRock’s Robert Mitchnick says investor sentiment toward Bitcoin has improved subtly over the past month.
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Bitcoin’s decoupling from equities could strengthen its appeal as a portfolio diversifier and hedge.
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US spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted $853.5 million last week, their strongest inflow week since mid-April.
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BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for more than 80% of the weekly inflows.
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The Coldcard exploit may have encouraged some investors to move from self-custody into regulated ETFs.
Investor perceptions of Bitcoin may be changing as the cryptocurrency begins to behave differently from traditional equities, according to BlackRock Head of Digital Assets Robert Mitchnick.
Bitcoin has traded primarily between $60,000 and $65,000 for more than two months, struggling to establish a clear directional trend. Despite its subdued price action, Mitchnick said sentiment has started to improve.
“We’ve seen sentiment turn in a noticeable, but subtle way the last month or so,” Mitchnick said during a televised interview on Monday.
He highlighted Bitcoin’s growing decoupling from equities, which began earlier in the year. The divergence initially worked against BTC as technology and artificial intelligence stocks rallied while Bitcoin remained flat or declined.
Bitcoin is down nearly 30% since the beginning of the year and approximately 50% from its price a year ago. BTC was trading at around $63,853 on Monday afternoon, representing a daily decline of roughly 2%.
Bitcoin’s Equity Decoupling Supports Diversification Thesis
Mitchnick pointed to Bitcoin’s performance during the July downturn in AI-related stocks as evidence that its relationship with equities is changing.
“In July, when AI had the huge pullback, Bitcoin outperformed significantly,” he said.
Bitcoin’s ability to move independently from equities could reinforce one of the main arguments for including the cryptocurrency in an investment portfolio.
Rather than behaving like another high-risk technology asset, BTC could increasingly serve as a diversifier.
Mitchnick said this decoupling was healthy because it supported Bitcoin’s potential role as a hedge against extreme downside risks elsewhere in an investor’s portfolio.
However, Bitcoin’s recent performance still reflects the volatility that has characterized the asset throughout its history.
Bitcoin ETF Investors Maintain Long-Term Outlook
Mitchnick said the downturn had not significantly changed the behavior of Bitcoin exchange-traded fund investors.
According to the BlackRock executive, the investor base for spot Bitcoin ETFs has generally consisted of fundamental, long-term participants following buy-and-hold strategies.
“It’s always been a volatile asset,” Mitchnick said, noting that Bitcoin has experienced five major boom-and-bust cycles.
While each cycle involved considerable volatility, he argued that Bitcoin ultimately ended each period at a significantly higher level than the previous cycle. The current downturn appears to be following a similarly uneven pattern.
Recent fund-flow data supports Mitchnick’s assessment that ETF investors remain willing to buy Bitcoin during periods of weakness.
US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted approximately $853.5 million last week, marking their strongest inflow week since mid-April.
The funds recorded positive net inflows across five consecutive trading sessions through Friday.
BlackRock’s IBIT dominated the activity, attracting about $693.7 million—more than 80% of the combined inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETFs. Fidelity’s FBTC followed with $116.4 million, accounting for approximately 13% of the total.
The strong inflows suggest that investors may be treating Bitcoin’s prolonged decline as an accumulation opportunity rather than abandoning the asset.
Coldcard Exploit May Be Driving Bitcoin Into ETFs
The recent Coldcard exploit, which reportedly resulted in more than $100 million in Bitcoin being stolen from cold storage, may also have contributed to ETF demand.
The incident sparked speculation that some investors are moving funds away from self-custody and into regulated investment products because of security concerns.
Bloomberg Intelligence Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas noted that Bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock, Fidelity and other issuers recorded inflows every trading day following the Coldcard hack.
Balchunas said it was difficult to ignore the correlation between the security breach and the subsequent inflows. However, the timing alone does not establish that the hack directly caused investors to move into ETFs.
The combination of strong ETF inflows and Bitcoin’s emerging decoupling from equities could indicate that investors increasingly view BTC as a distinct portfolio asset, despite its continued volatility and steep year-to-date decline.
