As BlackRock accelerates its expansion to digital assets in 2025, the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum becomes increasingly obvious in institutional adoption rates. In an interview with the Empire Podcast, Samara Cohen, senior managing director and chief investment officer of Blackrock’s ETF and Index Investments, is the world’s largest asset manager. How to view the two largest crypto assets and why Bitcoin has shown decisive planning in its clients and investment in Follio Integration, while Bitcoin stands out in decisively.
Blackrock’s historic iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) marks a critical moment in the company’s digital asset strategy. “That’s all three,” Cohen said. “But it really starts with the investment papers and the demand for market structure and readiness, and it’s obviously a regulatory context.” Cohen stressed that before any regulatory green light, BlackRock’s decision stems from investors’ strong desire for Bitcoin as part of a diversified portfolio.
The launch of IBIT is not BlackRock’s first step into Bitcoin. In 2022, the company offered an private Bitcoin trust to institutional clients, a key internal milestone. “We didn’t really get into hands on the actual bitcoin until the agency product was launched in 2022,” Cohen explained. “It was a very important agency moment for us to satisfy the workflow as well as the risk management and systems.”
The demand for Bitcoin is both broader and deeper than many people expect. IBIT has become the most successful ETP launch in history, part of the Cohen property, thanks in part to previously untapped investors. “Broadly speaking, about half of the holders of Jobitt are now what we call self-guided investors,” she noted. “For 3/4 of the population, they set up a brokerage account in some cases and bought the first ETP because they want bitcoin in the ETP wrapper.”
Bitcoin and Ethereum
This is in sharp contrast to Ethereum, which has a more cautious tone. Although BlackRock also launched Ethereum-based ETP, demand is not that strong. “Ethereum is still the second far away,” she said, discussing the interests of institutional investors. Unlike Bitcoin becoming increasingly seen as a potential store of value and diversified asset class, Ethereum’s investment papers have not yet been consolidated at the institutional level.
Cohen’s elaboration faced by complexity institutions when evaluating Ethereum. “You may really be optimistic about the utility of the public Ethereum blockchain, but don’t know how that translates into the value of the local token,” she said. This uncertainty complicates the situation based on widespread adoption. Although Bitcoin’s narrative as a “boundary store of value” is relatively simple, Ethereum’s positioning remains more opaque, intertwining technical utility with issues regarding token economics, competition and long-term market dynamics.
Apart from the narrative gap, Cohen identified a more structural barrier: the widespread lack of standardized data and metrics. “There are data and standards issues that are true for encryption,” she said. Cohen stressed that in comparison with traditional markets, metrics like cash flow, governance and team transparency (a key component used in equity investments) are largely non-existent or inconsistent in most crypto assets. “If I fundamentally consider indexing as an organizational technology for the market, how do you perform that task in cryptocurrency now?” she asked rhetorically, highlighting how fundamental standards are still missing even in the leading crypto ecosystem.
By contrast, Bitcoin adoption involves its scarcity, issuance schedule and clear metrics support for market infrastructure maturity, making it easier to adapt to traditional portfolio models. Cohen confirmed that BlackRock recommends providing 1-2% bitcoin allocations for investors seeking exposure and rooted in a detailed analysis of risk contribution to the portfolio. “If you exceed 2%, the incremental contribution to overall portfolio volatility is increasing exponentially,” she warned.
Although Ethereum continues to make progress, especially in decentralized finance and OnChain applications, Blackrock’s perspective reflects the reality before institutions need clear, standardized and well-defined valuation models. As Cohen concluded, “It becomes more complicated to understand how to create a valuation framework for Ethereum or any other token.”
At press time, BTC was trading at $95,120.
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