BlackRock head of digital assets Robbie Mitchnick signaled a shift in the way big investors view cryptocurrencies, pointing to artificial intelligence (AI) as a more significant driver than the expansion of new tokens.
Speaking about client behavior, Mitchnick described a market that has moved away from broad exposure to smaller assets. He said the rotation among major tokens has been “pretty fierce,” with only bitcoin and, subsequently, ether (ETH) maintaining consistent positions. Many newer tokens, he suggested, fail to have long-term relevance.
That pattern has shaped investor demand. “Most of that is nonsense,” Mitchnick said at the Digital Asset Summit in New York on Tuesday, referring to the large number of tokens in circulation. As a result, clients are now focusing on a narrow set of assets rather than building broad portfolios. Bitcoin and Ethereum dominate allocations, with limited interest beyond those names.
In that context, Mitchnick noted that AI is a more important force that will shape the future role of cryptocurrencies. He emphasized that AI is a broader topic than digital assets, but said the two intersect in ways that could matter.
“AI agents are very unlikely to use Fedwire and SWIFT,” he said. “What is cryptography? Cryptocurrencies are money native to computers… AI is data and intelligence native to computers. So there’s a natural symbiosis there.”
That framework presents cryptocurrencies less as a speculative asset class and more as infrastructure. A growing number of bitcoin miners have begun diverting resources toward artificial intelligence workloads, attracted by more stable incomes and a growing demand for computing power. Several publicly traded miners, including Hut 8 (HUT), Core Scientific (CORZ), and Iren (IREN), are repurposing data centers or signing hosting deals tied to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. Others have signaled similar plans, even if mining remains their core business.
Mitchnick also linked AI-driven disruption to the appeal of bitcoin. As new technologies reshape industries and create uncertainty, he suggested that bitcoin can serve as a stabilizing allocation. It can act as a diversifier during periods of rapid change.
“There are points of intersection that are relevant… there is clearly an advantage and an opportunity to play a role in the AI economy,” he said.
