At the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, BlackRock’s Head of Digital Assets, Robert Mitchnick, reaffirmed the asset management giant’s recommendation that wealth managers allocate 1–2% of client portfolios to Bitcoin, a guidance that originated from BlackRock’s internal model portfolios published in December 2024.
For context, BlackRock isn’t a niche crypto fund. It’s the largest asset manager in the world, with more than $11 trillion in assets under management. So when it nudges financial advisers toward even a modest BTC allocation, the signal is hard to ignore.
Mitchnick explained the rationale behind the allocation, noting it’s the product of years of research, not a reaction to short-term price action.
“That was not a sudden reaction to any one thing. That was the result of multiple years of analysis and research by that team, who runs those portfolios,” he said.
The original December report highlighted Bitcoin’s potential to serve as a global monetary alternative and a macro hedge, particularly in regimes marked by currency debasement, geopolitical friction, or unconventional monetary policy.
BlackRock sees Bitcoin as an alternative
Speaking on the adoption of that guidance three months later, Mitchnick emphasized how BlackRock’s model portfolios function as infrastructure for financial advisers looking to build diversified, risk-aware portfolios for retail and high-net-worth clients.
“Model portfolios have become very powerful tools to help FAs do that,” he noted. “At BlackRock, we have a very big asset base in the model portfolios that we build and equip our wealth adviser clients with. One of those portfolios, as you note in February this year, added Bitcoin as an allocation in the 1–2% range—a model portfolio that includes alternatives in it.”
The key phrase is alternatives. Bitcoin, in this context, is not being viewed as a high-beta tech bet or a speculative punt. It’s being positioned alongside other non-correlated assets that can improve risk-adjusted returns over time.
“The investment thesis behind that is the view of Bitcoin as a global monetary alternative that is attractive in a lot of states of the world,” he added.
BlackRock’s framing suggests Bitcoin is beginning to mature into the same institutional toolkit as commodities, private equity, or infrastructure.
