BlackRock Executive: Clients Invest in Bitcoin Mainly for "Digital Gold" Considerations, Not Global Payment Scenarios

According to Cointelegraph, Robbie Mitchnick, head of BlackRock's digital assets division, stated that most clients of the world's largest asset management company do not consider Bitcoin's widespread use in daily payments when deciding whether to invest.

In a podcast interview released on Friday, Mitchnick said, "I think for us and for most of our clients today, they are not really investing in the case of a global payment network." He described the possibility of Bitcoin being widely used for daily payments in the future as "potentially exceeding the existing out-of-the-money-option-value upside."

Mitchnick emphasized that this does not mean Bitcoin will ultimately be unable to achieve widespread payment use, but he referred to such a scenario as "more speculative," and pointed out that investors are currently more focused on Bitcoin as "digital gold" or a store of value. He believes that a lot needs to happen to achieve a shift in payment scenarios, including the development of Bitcoin scalability and technologies like Lightning.