BlackRock’s head of digital assets, Robbie Mitchnick, said institutional investors are increasingly concentrating on bitcoin and ether, viewing most other tokens as short-lived and largely “nonsense.” Mitchnick argued that artificial intelligence is a more powerful long-term force than the proliferation of new cryptocurrencies, with crypto serving as “computer-native money” that naturally complements AI’s “computer-native data and intelligence.” He framed crypto less as a speculative asset and more as infrastructure for the AI economy, noting that bitcoin miners are pivoting toward AI-related computing and that bitcoin may act as a diversifier amid AI-driven disruption. Speaking about client behavior, Mitchnick described a market that has moved away from broad exposure to smaller assets. He said the turnover among top tokens has been “pretty ferocious,” with only bitcoin (BTC) and, later, ether (ETH) maintaining consistent positions.
Many newer tokens, he suggested, fail to hold long-term relevance. That pattern has shaped investor demand. “The majority of that is nonsense,” Mitchnick said at the Digital Asset Summit in New York on Tuesday, referring to the vast number of tokens in circulation. As a result, clients now focus on a narrow set of assets rather than building wide portfolios. Bitcoin and Ethereum dominate allocations, with limited interest beyond those names.
Against that backdrop, Mitchnick pointed to AI as a more significant force shaping crypto’s future role. He stressed that AI is a larger theme than digital assets, but said the two intersect in ways that could matter. “What is crypto? Crypto is computer-native money… AI is computer-native data and intelligence. And so there’s a natural symbiosis there.” That framing casts crypto less as a speculative asset class and more as infrastructure.
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