BlackRock's Mitchnick says Bitcoin sentiment has turned as it decouples from stocks

A Subtle But Noticeable Shift

BlackRock's head of digital assets, Robert Mitchnick, said on August 10 that investor sentiment around $BTC has undergone a meaningful change. Speaking on Bloomberg's ETF IQ, Mitchnick said: "We've seen sentiment turn in a noticeable, but subtle way the last month or so. You've seen Bitcoin decouple from equities starting earlier in the year."

He pointed to Bitcoin's recent performance relative to equities as evidence of that shift, noting: "In July, when AI had the huge pullback, bitcoin outperformed significantly." For Mitchnick, that dynamic carries strategic weight. "That decoupling is healthy because it's part of the thesis for a lot of people around bitcoin as a diversifier and potentially a hedge against some of the left-tail risks that exist elsewhere in the portfolio," he said.

Bitcoin has been fluctuating between roughly $60,000 and $65,000 for more than two months, and is still down around 30% for the year. Yet Mitchnick's remarks suggest the firm sees the current range as a consolidation rather than a continuation of the earlier selloff.

On the question of how market turbulence has affected ETF holders, Mitchnick said the ETF investor base has consistently tended to consist of "fundamental, long-term, buy-and-hold" investors. "There have been now five major boom-and-bust cycles," he said. "Each time, the cycle ends significantly higher than the prior one, but with a bumpy ride along the way. And so it's been the case in this one as well."

ETF Flows Back BlackRock's View

The sentiment shift Mitchnick describes appears to be showing up in the data. Between August 3 and August 7, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $853.54 million in net inflows, the largest weekly total since mid-April, according to data from SoSoValue. BlackRock's IBIT alone accounted for $693 million of that sum, meaning roughly 81 cents of every dollar that entered the category landed in a single product.

Total spot Bitcoin ETF net assets reached $79.50 billion by the end of August 7, equal to approximately 6.10% of Bitcoin's market capitalization. Cumulative net inflows since launch stood at $52.18 billion. Still, the picture is not uniformly positive. On a year-to-date basis, the ETFs remain roughly $4.5 billion in the red due to net outflows. As Mitchnick and others have noted, consistent inflow momentum, rather than a single strong week, will be needed to support a sustained price recovery.

Sources:
The Block: BlackRock says bitcoin sentiment is turning as decoupling from stocks takes hold
Crypto News: Bitcoin ETFs draw $853.5M in five-day inflow streak
CoinDesk: Bitcoin price news after $853 million in weekly ETF inflows