Robert Mitchnick, head of digital assets at BlackRock, said that more than 90% of Bitcoin ETF investors, including individuals, financial advisors and institutions, followed a strategy of constant accumulation.
Speaking to CNBC today, Mitchnick said retail investors “are among the most long-term oriented” and tend to “buy the dip” when markets are falling, while hedge funds make up a smaller share of more tactical trading activity.
“The only part of the demand base where we see some bias toward the short term is the roughly 10% or so that are actually hedge funds,” Mitchnick said when asked what ETF flows reveal about crypto investor behavior.
He added that these investors resorted to different trading strategies such as basis trading, long positions in spot ETFs and short selling of futures contracts. These transactions are largely market neutral, but can create temporary inflows or outflows in ETF data.
“But the other 90 percent of the investor base,” Mitchnick pointed out, “has tended to be very stable and has followed a fairly consistent accumulation trajectory.”
He noted that despite the decline in Bitcoin’s price, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, IBIT, ranked among the world’s top ETF inflows in 2025, attracting approximately $26 billion and ranking fourth globally in inflows, even though the asset posted negative returns.
“There’s clearly been a lot of selling pressure elsewhere in the Bitcoin ecosystem, on crypto exchanges, on these leveraged offshore platforms,” Mitchnick said. “But the ETF investor base has taken a much more stable, longer-term fundamental view of things.”
Bitcoin and Ether dominate demand for crypto ETFs
Commenting on investor demand for crypto assets, Mitchnick reiterated that it remains predominantly focused on Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Although BlackRock sees interest in other crypto assets, it is taking “a very discerning approach” to expanding crypto offerings within its iShares ETF lineup.
“We continue to evaluate them as conditions evolve and maturity, liquidity scale and use cases develop,” he said.
Staking Transforms the Economics of Ether ETFs
This week, the leading asset manager launched ETHB, its staking-enabled Ether ETF. The fund attracted more than $43 million in net inflows in its stock market debut, according to Farside Investors.
Previous Ethereum ETFs did not earn staking rewards, leaving investors unable to participate in the network’s native yield.
The new structure addresses this limitation, adding an income component that many wallet allocators view as a significant incentive and could help close the adoption gap for Bitcoin products.
Despite this constraint, BlackRock’s flagship Ethereum ETF, ETHA, became the third-fastest ETF to reach $10 billion in assets under management, after only IBIT and FBTC.
With staking yield now built in, the company expects ETHB to become a dominant ETF vehicle for exposure to Ether.
Mitchnick called the fund a silver bullet for investors looking for convenient exposure.
