Institutional investors continue to accumulate Bitcoin during periods of market volatility, according to Robert Mitchnick, global head of digital assets at BlackRock.
Speaking amid recent market turbulence, Mitchnick said institutions, sovereign funds, and banks have been adding Bitcoin exposure on price pullbacks. He also pushed back against claims that hedge fund activity tied to BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF was responsible for the latest sharp downturn.
Addressing speculation that hedge funds had liquidated positions in the iShares Bitcoin Trust (iShares Bitcoin Trust, IBIT) to amplify volatility, Mitchnick said the narrative is not supported by data. During last week’s market correction, IBIT recorded net redemptions of just 0.2%, he said.
“If hedge funds were aggressively unwinding arbitrage trades, we would have seen outflows in the billions,” Mitchnick noted. Instead, he said selling pressure was concentrated in leveraged perpetual futures markets, rather than in spot ETFs.
Mitchnick added that IBIT’s investor base is dominated by long-term allocation funds, not short-term traders, and that the ETF’s overall positioning remained stable through the sell-off.