Dialogue with BlackRock Chief Investment Officer: Bitcoin will eventually be more like gold, 80% of the top 50 tokens in the market value make me feel unconfident

Original title: BlackRock 's Crypto Strategy In 2025 With Samara Cohen

Source:Empire

Compiled by: TechFlow

Summary of key points

Guest: Samara Cohen, Chief Investment Officer of BlackRock ETF & Index

Host: Jason

Broadcast date: April 28, 2025

This podcast invites Samara Cohen to explore BlackRock’s cryptocurrency strategy in 2025. We have conducted in-depth analysis of many topics such as the success of Bitcoin ETP, investors' demand for cryptocurrencies, Samara's optimistic attitude towards tokenization, and how to put traditional assets on the chain.

Wonderful view summary

• Bitcoin is indeed a new asset class, and as a borderless store of value tool, the ultimate state of Bitcoin is more like gold.

• Bitcoin is usually more dramatic when it rises and is relatively moderate when it falls.

• In the field of Bitcoin ETP, most buyers are still hedge funds.

• We are currently very concerned about tokenized money funds and tokenized treasury bond funds because cash and collateral liquidity in the capital market is poor, and blockchain technology can obviously improve this problem.

• I don’t think it’s necessary to sell it specifically to BlackRock for L1 and L2 projects in the crypto market.

• I don't think the positioning of Ethereum is more complicated than other altcoins. Actually, I think the entire field of encryption has problems with data and standardization.

• Of the top 50 tokens on CoinGecko or CoinMarketCap, I have no confidence in 40 of them. I think there are some opaque operations between market makers, which is completely different from the top 50 companies in the stock market.

• Stablecoins initially put the US dollar on the chain, and then we started putting Treasury bonds and money market funds on the chain. Next, I think there will be on-chain credit and put the credit on the chain.

• Finding technical applications that solve real-life problems is much better than simply turning non-current assets into current assets.

• In the current post-crisis era, banks and governments have limited financial support capabilities, so we need to expand the capital market to drive economic growth.

• How important is collaboration between digital native crypto companies and traditional financial companies. We need to think about what is the right investment portfolio, how to attract investors, how to create solutions, and how to market, and the meaning of a brand is becoming increasingly important.

introduce

Jason:

Hello everyone, welcome to "Empire". Today’s conversation made me very excited. I don't usually read the guest resume at the beginning of the show, but this time I felt it necessary because it was one of the most impressive resumes we've encountered on Empire.

Our guest today is Samara Cohen, Chief Investment Officer of BlackRock ETFs and Index Investments, managing the market quality and investment integrity of the approximately $7.8 trillion BlackRock Index Fund and iShares ETFs. Prior to joining BlackRock, Samara was managing director of Goldman Sachs Securities.

In addition, Samara was selected as one of the most influential women in the American Banker and was named the most influential woman in the American financial industry by Barrons for four consecutive years. She is also a board member of the SIFMA and BlackRock Foundation. What makes me interesting is that she also studied drama in college.

I wonder what your actual role is at BlackRock and how do you view your role? If possible, can you provide some numbers, such as how big is your team? 7.8 Is the number of trillion US dollars accurate? I want to hear what you think of your character.

Samara Cohen:

I think if you want to understand the most important number in my role, it is that the number of global investors entering the market through the iShares ETF and BlackRock index portfolio has exceeded 100 million. Our goal is to add another 100 million investors, hoping to boost people’s retirement and financial health. The more people participate in the market, the more they can enjoy the dividends of global economic growth. ETF and index investment has been a disruptive technology over the past 50 years, enabling more people to participate in the market.

My role at BlackRock is to oversee how we transform indexes into investable portfolios. Half of our assets in other types of fund forms are index portfolios and the other half are ETFs. Therefore, many ETFs package index portfolios into ETFs, although more and more ETFs are also used in non-index investments.

Jason:

What do you think BlackRock’s role globally? What is your main job?

Samara Cohen:

I have an almost "old" perspective on this. Actually, it depends on who you ask and how long it takes. I think working at BlackRock, but BlackRock is actually my first job after college.

I think you might be interested in a movie about the history of index investments posted on YouTube a few weeks ago called Tune Out the Noise. Interestingly, index investments weren’t really matured until commercial microchips were available, as buying thousands of securities simultaneously to form a portfolio requires a lot of computing power.

In fact, BlackRock had no ETF and index businesses at that time. I was a graduate of a dual degree in finance and drama, but all my summer experiences were working in a local theater. I wanted to see what I could do with my finance major, and I was attracted to this company, which was then called BlackRock Financial Management, said their mission was to provide better risk management technology for investors in mortgage-backed securities markets, which was exactly what BlackRock specialized at the time. While I didn’t fully understand what this meant at the time, I liked the mission of helping average investors manage their risks better. So I ended up choosing BlackRock, I was No. 134, and now we have more than 20,000 employees, but I was No. 134 at the time. Although we now have over 20,000 employees, I still believe that the basic mission of helping investors manage risk and enter the market is still as real today as our goal as our company.

The difference between ETF and ETP

Jason:

Can you explain the difference between ETF and ETP ? And how did BlackRock 's business evolve? How should we view BlackRock?

Samara Cohen:

Let's start with the definition. ETP is a general category that represents Exchange Traded Product, while ETF is a subcategory, namely Exchange Traded Fund. These two terms are often confused in the industry. I'm glad you asked this question, especially since I didn't tell you about it in advance. But we think it is helpful to distinguish between the two as more and more products are included in the scope of ETP. Some products may be called ETP or even ETC (Exchange Traded Commodity), but in the United States, these terms are not widely accepted. ETC is not a fund, nor is it a diversified index fund or a passively managed portfolio. Therefore, while these two terms are often used interchangeably in the industry, ETFs are more common and ETP is a larger category.

BlackRock was founded in 1988. In fact, BlackRock acquired Barclays Global Investors in 2009, and since then iShares has become part of BlackRock, which has focused on ETFs and index businesses. At that time, this was actually controversial in the industry because many people did not realize that active management and index investment could coexist.

Jason:

As a member of BlackRock’s Global Executive Committee, how do you view the company’s business? Can you tell me about BlackRock’s different business lines and how you view the development of the entire company? What I particularly want to know is where these are in BlackRock’s overall profits and losses as you may start to get involved in cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin.

Samara Cohen:

I’ve been working on BlackRock’s Global Executive Committee for three years, and I returned to BlackRock ten years ago, before that I worked at Goldman Sachs for 16 years. It can be said that being part of an asset management company, especially working at BlackRock, is very different from my trading experience at Goldman Sachs. We are very focused on our mission, and our mission is to help people invest better and help more people achieve financial health. Every five years we look at the company’s long-term goals, write about content, and communicate extensively with employees to ensure everyone truly understands our direction. So, as you can see, we have made some adjustments in recent years and we think there are areas in which we need to make progress in the future to help more people achieve financial health.

We know that we have to expand further in the private equity market, which explains several important transactions we have announced over the past year, including partnerships with GIP and unfinished deals with HPS. Our work on digital assets, tokenization and broader consideration of retirement and retirement portfolios is all about adapting to the current new macroeconomic environment.

New system of the market

Jason:

What do you think of the current macroeconomic environment?

Samara Cohen:

We have gained a lot of new understanding of the market in the past year, and this is indeed a unique market. As a professional with 30 years of market experience, I can recall the unique market environment that has appeared in many times in my career. I've experienced more of these moments in the past five years than I did in the previous 15 years.

I think the uncertainty in the market has increased in the past few years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. I've been thinking about what this change means for the market's resilience, adaptability, and how to reposition as information changes rapidly. In fact, we are seeing the development of ETFs, partly because of this growth in demand, because ETFs are an easy and convenient way to enter the market. For example, our conversation now comes weeks after the tariffs were first announced, and we are seeing record volumes for stock ETFs and fixed income ETFs. For example, the proportion of ETF trading in the U.S. stock market is usually positively correlated with VIX (Volatility Index). Before April 2, the percentage was about 27% or 28%, and in some days in the past two weeks, the percentage has soared to 40%. Because if you want to adjust your risk quickly, ETFs offer a transparent and easy way. Therefore, I think the development of ETFs is closely related to how to provide more entry and flexibility in a rapidly changing market.

Active investment and passive investment

Jason:

Suppose we enter an era of markets that can be widely described as high volatility. Now ETFs seem to account for more than 50% of the fund complex and account for between 13% and 20% of the stock market. I think the traditional view might be that in a time of high volatility, you may need more active strategies and active managers, while in a less volatile economic environment, you may be more inclined to invest passively or indexally. How do you view the role of ETFs in high volatility markets?

Samara Cohen:

I am an index portfolio manager and my husband is an active manager who pursues alpha. But in reality, managing ETFs or index portfolios is not completely passive. And, perhaps more importantly, it is definitely not passive that investors decide to use ETFs or use them as index strategies in the investment process, which I think is very important.

Back to BlackRock’s trajectory since its acquisition of BGI in 2009, active investment and index investment are actually a spectrum that investors can use to build portfolios and decide when core beta building blocks are needed and when a single securities are needed high beliefs. In the post-Coronavirus era, some of the largest institutions adopt ETFs are observed when institutional asset managers like BlackRock use ETFs for allocation in their portfolio strategies, especially in fixed income ETFs.

As for the statistics you mentioned, I think you are roughly correct about the stock market proportion currently in ETF or ETP packaging, but much lower in the bond market. About 1% to 2% of the fixed income market in the bond market are in ETP packaging. Of course, for those of us who are closely following the market, Bitcoin’s share is about 5%, between stocks and bonds.

BlackRock Bitcoin ETP launch

Jason:

Let 's talk about Bitcoin. Before 2024, we discussed whether Bitcoin products should be launched. Is this decision driven by regulatory factors, investor demand or market structure? What do you think is the market structure mature enough, is the exchange transparency high, and what exactly contributed to this decision?

Samara Cohen:

All three aspects have implications, but initially it was mainly based on investment arguments and customer needs. Typically, the order of investment arguments, customer needs, market structure preparation, and regulatory background is the same. We hope that supervision will follow this trajectory, that is, there will be corresponding supervision only after the market structure is in place, and these factors affect each other.

It is also worth noting that our first bitcoin product is actually not ETP, but a private equity trust we launched in 2022. Although we set up a digital asset team in 2020 and did a lot of work on the investment and application of blockchain technology, it was not until 2022 that we launched that institutional product that we really started to engage in Bitcoin. This is a critical moment for us, giving us a deeper understanding of workflows, risk management and systems, and laying the technical foundation for subsequent support for ETP. As you mentioned, we launched and submitted our ETP in 2024, but in 2022 we have received a lot of customer feedback that they want to be able to reach Bitcoin and be unhappy with existing alternatives, building their investment argument around that. This change in demand is very significant compared to five years ago.

Regarding ETP, although you can have the best technology and trading capabilities, it requires a market ecosystem to make ETP work. In the case of Bitcoin ETP, this is not only an interesting exercise to evaluate the structure of the crypto market, but also involves the assessment of critical interoperability, because Bitcoin ETP is actually a bridge connecting the crypto market with the ETP market. Finally, I want to say that the process is indeed very long. When we first talked about Bitcoin ETP, I was surprised that people in the crypto circle thought it was very important. Both ETP and cryptocurrencies are seen as disruptive technologies that help people get into the market more easily. What impressed me was that the first time I bought Bitcoin, it was less than two minutes to understand the ecosystem, so I had to sort out this value proposition. Although ETP packaging seems to undermine the commitment to Bitcoin market structure, I understand that the reality of crypto market structure is that there are a lot of value added in traditional finance, which is why we see demand for ETP.

Jason:

How do companies like BlackRock make such decisions? I see that there are usually three ways: one is top-down, for example, the CEO says, “We want to do this.” The other is bottom-up, where salespeople hear customer feedback and report them layer by layer. There is another possibility that someone on the execution team is very supportive and thinks we have to make a difference in the crypto space.

Samara Cohen:

Ideally, all three happen. Our cryptocurrency journey unfolds in the public eye. Depending on the characteristics of the company, we are students of the market and our views on a certain issue may continue to evolve. The customer feedback we heard in 2020 and 2021 has changed a lot compared to a few years ago, and customers are beginning to think that cryptocurrencies may play a major role in diversifying their portfolios. It is worth mentioning that I always remember the birth of Bitcoin because my daughter was born on October 10, 2008, when the Bitcoin White Paper was just released.

Although this asset class is relatively young, we need top-down market interest when evaluating its role in asset allocation strategies and bottom-up interest also grows as customer feedback increases. In addition, there is a need for internal supporters who are educated and engaged, and they need to be patient. I think our digital asset leader Robbie is an example of this field and he does a great job.

Reasons for the success of IBIT launch

Jason:

Why is the launch of IBIT so successful? This is one of the most successful cases in ETP history.

Samara Cohen:

I learned a little about the practicality of ETP packaging and its role in bridges between encryption and traditional finance. In 2024, we found that the crypto community has a very high demand for ETP packaging. Overall, about half of IBIT holders are now self-oriented investors, while the other half are retail and advisory investors.

(Shenchao TechFlow Note: IBIT refers to The iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, providing an investment method similar to directly holding Bitcoin.)

Jason:

So 50% is self-oriented investors, say I have a TD Ameritrade or Charles Schwab account, I just need to click on the purchase on the account.

Samara Cohen:

Yes, 50%. Then the other 50% are roughly divided into consulting and institutional investors. Among self-oriented investors, data shows that three-quarters of people have never held iShares. This shows that they have not bought iShares ETP before. While we have a lot of products, since iShares is the leader in this field, it can be said that for these people, they opened brokerage accounts and bought their first ETP because they wanted bitcoin to be in ETP, probably because they needed institutional level custody and transaction transparency. And, they may not want to go in and out frequently in the crypto ecosystem because it can be troublesome.

Jason:

Yes, there may be a "too big to fail" mentality. Many friends who entered the industry in the early days always suggested that I keep Bitcoin by myself. Later, Coinbase became larger and larger, and began to provide hosting services to some institutions. Everyone began to feel that if Coinbase went bankrupt, we might face bigger problems, so we turned to Coinbase. Now, a product like IBIT may be the next iteration because if BlackRock goes bankrupt, it is almost too big to fall. I'm trying to understand the psychology of those who are willing to do so.

It would be easier to transfer Bitcoin to IBIT. Investors, especially those who manage risks overall, want to do everything on one platform rather than switching between two ecosystems, which can be complicated to handle. If you are the holder of iShares, it is worth noting that BlackRock is not your opponent. You are a shareholder of the fund and the fund has its own governance structure. Our custody is provided by Coinbase and we disclose all parts of the ecosystem, but we do select partners to provide Bitcoin to investors in IBIT.

Investor demand for Bitcoin

Jason:

BlackRock recommends 1% to 2% allocation of assets for investors interested in investing in Bitcoin. What are the considerations for this configuration recommendation? Because this will definitely attract a lot of attention. BlackRock recommends allocating 1% or 2% to Bitcoin. What is the reason behind this decision?

Samara Cohen:

First, we recommend that investors who want to invest in Bitcoin make it reasonable to allocate 1% to 2% of their assets to Bitcoin, which needs to be considered in the context of the entire portfolio.

Looking back on the journey of 2020, we are trying to do two things. First, we are popularizing Bitcoin information to existing iShares investors. Second, we realize that we are also educating existing Bitcoin investors about ETP and its packaging. Therefore, we want to do both at the same time. We initially mainly spread the knowledge of Bitcoin.

We discussed what Bitcoin is, how ETP works, and how to get Bitcoin. We then explore the potential of Bitcoin as a unique diversified asset more broadly, especially in the current macroeconomic environment. We reviewed some past market pressure events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, regional banking crisis, etc., and observed the performance of Bitcoin and other risky assets. We explore the diversification potential of Bitcoin, and this story continues to unfold as we get more data, including the latest events in the geopolitical market volatility we are currently in.

After studying the role of Bitcoin as a potential diversified asset, we want to explore the issue of portfolio allocation, but this is indeed difficult in terms of Bitcoin, and so is gold. Ultimately, this analysis becomes complicated when the value of an asset depends on its adoption.

We believe that a key point that external investors can understand is also recognized by our company internally, which is to consider the tolerance of overall portfolio risks. Our view is that investors have taken on some concentrated risks and are coexisting with the broad U.S. stock portfolio. Therefore, we can set up a configuration like this: if I am willing to assume the same additional risk contribution in Bitcoin as in MAG 7 stocks, this idea is understandable, which leads to the 1% to 2% configuration we proposed. If it exceeds 2%, the additional contribution to overall portfolio volatility will rise exponentially. So, this is the construction idea we think is helpful.

Bitcoin trading during market selloff

Jason:

Bitcoin transactions have always been attractive. We are recording the show now in mid-April, and the market has been volatile in recent weeks, and it is obvious that the market is still not very clear about how to trade Bitcoin.

I remember one day, Nasdaq fell sharply, gold rose sharply, and Bitcoin remained stable. We discussed this a week or two ago. I think Santi's view is that investors are not sure whether Bitcoin should be traded like Nasdaq or gold. I saw Bitwise 's CIO Matt Hogan tweeted that Bitcoin is trading differently from both, Bitcoin is Bitcoin, it is a new asset class. I'm curious what you think.

Samara Cohen:

Bitcoin is indeed a new asset class, and as a borderless store of value tool, the ultimate state of Bitcoin is more like gold. But this is difficult to grasp during the adoption process. I heard you or someone on Roundup mention that Bitcoin is 50% like Nasdaq and 50% like gold. I think this is exactly what we are seeing.

This is a critical moment, how Bitcoin’s price performance is manifested in this market volatility caused by cross-border tensions and supply chain complexity. In theory, this should be the "stage" of Bitcoin. However, the actual performance was not satisfactory and did not show the unique diversity we saw under other market pressures. Instead, in this incident, the correlation between Bitcoin and stocks actually increased.

There are some additional observations. We've talked about this before, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. First, if we look at the situation of Bitcoin and IBIT, we will find that there is some disagreement between the two. IBIT has not actually experienced large-scale outflows like Bitcoin, which may indicate that market price movements over the past few weeks have been driven primarily by retail investors and speculative trading, while many institutional positions have been closed in the second half of March. Of course, IBIT cannot leverage like BTC, so we can now see the role of different investor bases, and in IBIT we can see the existence of long-term investors more.

Another thing worth noting is that Bitcoin’s volatility is also interesting. Bitcoin did not show much volatility when it fell, and its volatility still maintained a positive skew.

Volatility is evolving. Bitcoin is usually more dramatic when it rises and is relatively moderate when it falls. This is usually a good thing. By the way, this is also why IBIT options are so important to the ecosystem, as this volatility characteristic is often very favorable for option market makers.

Who is buying Bitcoin ETP?

Jason:

We just discussed different types of buyers, 50% of whom are self-oriented and the other 50% are purchased through consultants. Among institutional investors, there is another type of buyer. But in fact, there are a group of new buyers who are non-emotional buyers. These buyers include market makers, or some hedge funds, and although they may not be market makers, they just want to make small profits through large-scale transactions. What do you think of these new market-entering groups?

Samara Cohen:

I haven't heard him talk about this topic in detail. However, I do think that among institutional investors, the last part is neither self-oriented nor consultant-guided, but institutional investors. While we can see from some documents that sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and endowments are buying Bitcoin, most buyers in this field are hedge funds. In many cases, the buying behavior is like this.

I think what David calls a non-emotional buyer can be seen as an investor or trader who only buys specific financial instruments, looking for relative value in different asset classes. One of the important ways they buy bitcoin is through futures basis trading, which I think is an important dimension in every market.

Is the launch of Ethereum ETP successful?

Jason:

Ethereum 's success is obviously not that significant. Why is this happening?

Samara Cohen:

I'm used to the disappointment of the crypto community with ETH, but I don't think it's appropriate to use IBIT as a benchmark.

Obviously, for investors, the investment framework of Bitcoin is very clear, such as its role as a store of value. Understanding the valuation framework of Ethereum or other tokens is much more complex. I noticed that in the investor community, although you may be optimistic about the practicality of the Ethereum blockchain, you are not clear about how to convert it into the actual value accumulation of tokens. This is one aspect. In addition, investors are generally worried about the risk exposure of large technology stocks and feel that it is related to Ethereum's investment allocation.

Jason:

What do you think are the main problems facing Ethereum at the moment? If Bitcoin is digital gold, then what is the positioning of Ethereum? Is this positioning too complicated?

Samara Cohen:

I don't think the positioning of Ethereum is more complicated than other altcoins. Actually, I think the entire field of encryption has problems with data and standardization. How to evaluate these different tokens and applications, understand the source and where value accumulation comes from, and access to analytical information is very complex. I don't think this is a simple marketing question.

Investor demand for cryptocurrencies

Jason:

What do you think of other encryption products? I know you can 't reveal the upcoming products, but what new crypto products do you think the market needs?

Samara Cohen:

Looking back at the development history of Bitcoin ETP, we must first clarify its investment logic. At present, the investment logic of many altcoins is not clear. One challenge in the crypto space is, which applications will be winners? What problems will be solved and how to solve them? We are currently very concerned about tokenized money funds and tokenized treasury bond funds because cash and collateral liquidity in the capital market is poor, and blockchain technology can obviously improve this problem. As these technologies mature, we will see which protocols, applications or companies have successfully solved practical problems and thus derive their investment logic. But I think we are still in the early stages of technology application and cannot determine who is the ultimate winner or loser, and investment needs to have a clear view on this.

This reminds me of the question you mentioned about indexes. If you are optimistic about technology applications but are not sure how to choose winners and losers, that's what index investment is about. It allows investors to reach an entire market or a certain area of ​​the market, defined by an algorithm we call index methodology. So what I want to ask you is, how to apply this kind of market organization technology in the field of encryption? Because this requires relying on data and standards.

Jason:

I think data and standards are the key. The industry is currently focusing on wrong indicators. In our Block Works, we believe the industry is focusing on the wrong metrics. Therefore, the core of the problem lies in data and standards. If I look at the top 100, 50, or 500 companies in the stock market, although I don’t necessarily understand their specific business, they are all real companies with revenue, cash flow, profit and loss statement and governance structure.

Samara Cohen:

These aspects you just mentioned can be used to build an exponential methodology. If you consider governance, team, cash flow and other factors, then I 'm not sure how many tokens can meet these requirements.

Jason:

I think what we need to focus on is that if you dig deep into the leadership meetings of Block Works, that's exactly what we keep thinking about, because a core issue in the industry is that I don 't have confidence in 40 of the top 50 tokens on CoinGecko or CoinMarketCap. I think there are some opaque operations between market makers. This is completely different from the top 50 companies in the stock market, and while I may not know what they are doing specifically, I can see their profit and loss statements, governance structures, and know their management teams that don't exist in the crypto space.

Samara Cohen:

Yes, this is the basis for index investment, because index investment actually has two steps. The first step is how to build an algorithm and create an exponential methodology to describe the market or different areas of the market. The second step, and a challenge, is how to transform the algorithm into a real-world investment portfolio and minimize the actual friction associated with investment and rebalancing.

Jason:

Yes, that's the index I'm willing to invest in. For example, it may be the top 50 agreements that can generate actual income. But we can discuss this later.

Why BlackRock is optimistic about tokenization

Jason:

They spent about $15 billion to $30 billion to acquire different companies. Cryptocurrencies are obviously an important asset category and industry that you are concerned about, and so are the private equity markets. Can you tell me how you view the growth of the private equity market and why it is so interesting? How can data and standards be integrated into it here?

Samara Cohen:

In large-scale operations, data and standards are crucial. Currently, our mission is to expand the capital market so that it can support more people who want to save and invest, and more companies, not just public companies that want to raise funds for a variety of interesting and exciting investment projects, whether related to AI or infrastructure. We are at a time when capital market expansion will bring more economic growth.

How to expand the capital market? This almost starts with data and standards. I think indexing is the foundation, it will be the foundation of cryptocurrency and private equity markets, and even before index investment, we need to understand what performance is. What is your benchmark? How do you know if you surpass or lag behind the market? You need to define the market.

Based on this mission, we need a larger market to support more investors. We are looking for the next 100 million investors. We have our digital asset strategy and have indeed increased investment in the private equity market, including the acquisition of Global Infrastructure Partners and HPS (Private Credit Management Company), although the HPS transaction has not yet been completed.

Finally, there are already completed acquisitions, and Preqin is very important because Preqin is a data and analytics company. I think our transparency and belief in data and standards is obvious. Such an acquisition trajectory will bring transparency, scale, and ultimately provide more opportunities for the wider market.

Jason:

I saw a headline from CNBC, referring to how the world 's largest asset managers use nearly $28 billion acquisitions to reinvent themselves. I'm not sure if this number is completely accurate. We say the $28 billion acquisition is to drive the development of private equity assets. So will you do the same in the crypto world?

Samara Cohen:

I'm not sure. I think we are still in the early stages of our journey with digital assets. As I said, we are optimistic about the potential of tokenization to improve capital markets and make it work better. So we are very concerned about more tokenization in the market and how we build bridges with investors. Whether it’s introducing more cryptocurrencies into traditional finance through ETP or the tokenized monetary funds we talk about, some of the largest tokenized monetary funds are crypto-native institutions looking to gain more complex financial management capabilities. Therefore, we will continue to invest in the ability to build these bridges.

The question about cryptocurrency, or cryptocurrency is a widely defined term. If I say digital capital markets, people need to invest in the capital markets. I'm very interested in this. At which turning point do you think more people’s investment will turn on the chain rather than off the chain?

Jason:

At Block Works, we basically think of it as we are creating a new financial market. You have all these traditional old databases of assets, and we just transfer the assets to a new, possibly more efficient database.

Samara Cohen:

I like this metaphor. I think it is necessary to pay attention to this transition process. Because if you sit with me and conceive the vision of the global capital market from the whiteboard, it will definitely be more tokenized than the current market.但我们有庞大的功能性传统市场。如何从A 点到B 点是我们需要花时间思考的事情，我也花了很多时间考虑这些市场如何尽可能地互操作。

如何实现资产上链

Jason：

我觉得最近几个月最有趣的进展之一就是你们与IBIT 的合作，把比特币这种加密资产从加密轨道转移到传统金融轨道。我们还没谈到BUIDL，这涉及从传统轨道转向加密轨道的过程。Ethena 似乎是BUIDL 的主要持有者之一。

我认为今年会有一个大趋势，虽然现在还没有完全公开，但已经在幕后开始了。 稳定币最初是把美元上链，然后我们开始把国债和货币市场基金上链。接下来，我认为会有链上信用的出现，把信用上链。

在深入讨论代币化之前，我想问你一个关于新产品的问题。从机构的角度来看，你认为现在有多少加密资产是可以投资的？比如比特币和以太坊？

Samara Cohen：

我对其他币种在机构生态系统中的情况了解不多。但根据我们与机构投资者的对话，他们目前主要关注比特币，尤其是在当前环境下。以太坊还是相对次要的。

我们谈论的是那些通常在60/40 债券投资组合中的机构投资者，他们在寻找新的收益和多样化来源。他们希望同时获得这两者，这也是他们投资私募市场和比特币的原因，尤其是在当前情况下，还有其他一系列更系统的阿尔法生成策略。

Jason：

从估值的角度来看，你认为我们会采用现有的公司估值方法吗？在今天的市场中，我们都在看相同的指标，比如每股收益和市盈率，或者损益表。我们会将这些指标应用于加密资产吗？还是你认为我们会为加密资产创造新的重要指标？

Samara Cohen：

我认为这取决于你关注的是什么。我觉得可以轻松地将损益表应用于区块链，但以太坊可能不适用。它可能更像是一种商品，而不是公司。像Uniswap 这样的应用程序，可能更容易应用损益表，因为它有收入和支出等。

我认为这很合理。你我之间有过很多关于数字资产政策和监管路径的讨论。我认为现在一个复杂但令人兴奋的事情是，许多现有的监管并没有考虑到区块链技术的潜力。它并没有真正考虑到24/7 交易或原子结算、实时可转让性等所有这些特性。因此，我确实认为将会有一套新的标准和指标，成为加密资产真正持久采用的一部分。

Jason：

你如何看待代币化？

在2018 年和2019 年期间，有很多关于“我们将代币化整个世界”的讨论，许多公司开始行动。最初的提议是，我们将通过代币化使非流动资产变得更具流动性。我们将所有房地产放在区块链上，但最终并没有发生什么，因为非流动资产并没有因此变得流动。现在的新阶段是，我们实际上是将相对流动的资产转移到链上，并且对此有很大的需求。

Samara Cohen：

你对这个问题的回答很好。首先，它可以使证券交易、衍生品交易和抵押品管理的基础设施变得更加高效、可靠和透明。因此，我认为 寻找解决现实问题的技术应用，比单纯将非流动资产变为流动资产要好得多。

我喜欢这一点，正如你所说，大家都认为我们可以为更多的资产创建市场。这个情况在ETF 上也常常发生。我无法告诉你有多少次我被某个新兴市场国家的证券交易所接触，他们需要做大量工作来使当地市场更具投资价值，创造透明度和数据，但他们似乎有一种神话，认为只要上市ETF 就能解决他们的市场现代化问题。 But that's not the case.市场需要某些标准来建立投资者信心，以便买卖双方能够聚集在一起。我认为代币化资产也是如此。毫无疑问，如果我们观察资本市场生态系统的各个部分，代币化将改善这些部分，并为最终投资者释放价值。

贝莱德的加密货币十年愿景

Jason：

你怎么看贝莱德在数字资产领域的十年规划？

Samara Cohen：

我们最近对这个愿景进行了详细阐述，我们发表了一篇名为《资本市场的力量》的论文，每年还会发布董事长信，公开我们的观点。我们相信资本市场，顺便说一下在我们的论文和思考中，我们采用了最广泛的定义，即资本市场是资本的消费者和供应者之间的交汇点。

对于资本的供应者来说，他们是那些暂时不需要使用资金的储蓄者，希望通过投资获得回报，比如公司股份或债券利息。而资本的消费者则是那些希望立即使用资金进行投资以促进增长的公司和政府。

在当前的后危机时代，银行和政府的资金支持能力受限，因此我们需要扩展资本市场来推动经济增长。 代币化可以在这方面发挥重要作用，尤其是在流动性和抵押品生态系统上，这些都是市场运转的关键。

Jason：

你认为我们什么时候能看到代币化股票的出现？

Samara Cohen：

I'm not sure. What do you think?我认为一些大型加密公司的IPO 将是一个值得关注的时刻。

Jason：

那会很有意思。我预测加密平台如Coinbase 和传统经纪公司如TD Ameritrade、Schwab，以及金融科技经纪公司如Robinhood 和public.com 将开始交融。如果传统经纪公司不创新，可能会被淘汰，而Coinbase 等平台可能会开始提供股票交易，Robinhood 也会推出强大的加密产品。这将是首次交汇。

Samara Cohen：

我们需要看到链上投资者对更广泛投资机会的需求。这将推动股票、债券等资产的代币化。

Jason：

过去几年，金融行业的人常说要构建许可区块链，比如摩根大通的Quorum。现在，许多人，包括贝莱德，都在公共区块链上进行开发。你们如何看待公共区块链与私有区块链之间的区别？

Samara Cohen：

我认为未来的发展可能主要集中在许可区块链上，因为这有助于满足监管要求，并且可以更好地控制信息。我觉得我们的想法受到金融危机后交易场所激增的影响。虽然增加多边交易平台是个好主意，但过多的平台导致了系统的复杂性和碎片化，这并不理想。

因此，利用公共区块链的透明性来避免这些问题，我认为这是一个重要的转变。这不仅对我个人如此，对我们的战略思考也是如此。如何在公共区块链上有效构建机构级金融应用仍然面临许多挑战，但我对此持乐观态度。

Jason：

对于那些正在构建L1 和L2 并尝试向贝莱德推销的团队，你有什么建议？

Samara Cohen：

我认为没有必要专门向贝莱德推销。我们在保持联系和自我学习方面做得很好。因此，与其考虑如何推销，不如关注市场上亟待解决的重大问题。对我来说，24/7 交易及其未来是一个重要议题。这是一个引人入胜的话题，我一直在关注。

24/7 交易会成为现实。在公共市场上，我们已经看到它的趋势，尤其是在股票市场。部分原因是加密市场的“FOMO”，许多投资者已经习惯于随时随地访问加密市场。此外，还有其他原因。关于24/7 市场的优点有很多不同的看法。在我看来，重启已停止交易的市场非常困难。当市场具有持续的流动性时，它的韧性是有意义的。然而某些时段风险较高。因此，如何创建24/7 市场，同时确保透明度、韧性和保护措施以保护投资者，是需要解决的重大问题。这是区块链技术需要解决的现实挑战。

投机是否推动了采用？

Jason：

你对去年Meme 的流行有什么看法？这会不会影响Solana 在机构投资者中的品牌形象？

Samara Cohen：

我没有特别的看法。不过，我觉得市场中的游戏化现象很有趣。任何能吸引投资者参与市场的东西，从长远来看都有可能是有益的。但关键在于要有合适的保护措施和教育，以及我们如何看待可投资的长期组合。

对我来说，这很吸引我。最初我认为重点是把更多储蓄者转变为投资者。但后来我意识到，可能有一个中间阶段，人们先成为交易者，让他们对市场感到舒适并愿意参与。

Jason：

GameStop 事件就是一个例子，对吧？很多人因此留在了市场中。

Samara Cohen：

确实是个有趣的案例。Meme 可能在吸引长期投资者进入加密领域方面有一定作用。但我认为， 透明度和教育，以及整个加密行业的责任感非常重要，这样才能让这一过程持续发展，而不是止步于此。

Jason：

我之前没想到这一点。这些投机性的东西几乎成了一种引导工具，让人们最终成为投资者。

Samara Cohen：

我的孩子们就是一个例子。我儿子觉得ETF 没什么意思，不值得投资。作为家长，我最初想，“好吧，等他长大点再说。”但现在我希望他能体验市场，不过是在有保护措施的框架内进行。

最后的思考

Jason：

未来可能即将发生一场巨大的财富转移。预计大约有50 到70 万亿美元的财富将从老一代转移到年轻一代。如果你看一些调查，你会发现大约90% 的15 到20 岁的年轻人对传统金融系统感到失望。你怎么看待这一巨大的财富转移，尤其是年轻人对金融系统的不满？

Samara Cohen：

还有一个统计数据表明，这90% 中大约有三分之二可能是女性，这也意味着投资者和市场参与者的结构将发生重大变化。我们知道这一代人在投资方面是数字原住民，通常通过同龄人和社交媒体获取投资建议。那么，我们该如何为此做好准备，帮助他们取得成功呢？我认为这是一个很好的例子，说明在这个关键时刻， 数字原住民的加密公司与传统金融公司之间的合作是多么重要。我们需要思考什么是合适的投资组合，如何吸引投资者，如何创造解决方案，以及如何进行市场推广，品牌的意义越来越重要。