BlackRock’s global head of digital assets, Robbie Mitchnick, was pressed on the prospect of a spot XRP exchange-traded fund during an interview with Nate Geraci on the “Crypto Prime” podcast.
While he offered no product reveal, he did spell out precisely how BlackRock is thinking about what could come next after its blockbuster Bitcoin and Ether launches.
Geraci noted on air that he has “publicly predicted that BlackRock would file for a spot XRP ETF and a spot Solana ETF,” then asked how the firm evaluates “future product development around crypto-related ETFs.”
Mitchnick declined to speak to any specific tickers but was explicit about the decision framework: “There’s a lot of factors that go into that decision-making process obviously, but the biggest driver ultimately is our clients… What is the level of investor demand? What is the logic and investment thesis for investors and for our clients around these potential products? What problem are we solving for them?”
He added that BlackRock weighs “market cap, liquidity, [and] maturity,” along with “clarity of investment thesis and overall… portfolio considerations,” describing it as “a constant evaluation process,” not a single point in time. The exchange came amid a wide-ranging discussion of how quickly BlackRock’s crypto business has scaled and how starkly the firm differentiates Bitcoin from Ether in client portfolios.
Geraci highlighted the growth figures—“[IBIT] launched in early January 2024. It’s over $85 billion in assets… [ETHA] launched in July… around $16 billion”—and asked whether Ethereum’s trajectory matched expectations after Bitcoin’s record start.
Ethereum is “a more nuanced, more technical discussion,” effectively “a bet around blockchain adoption and digital assets more broadly,” with competitive dynamics and questions about “value capture in the Ether token versus the activity level on the Ethereum blockchain.” As a result, Bitcoin has seen “much greater penetration” among institutional and wealth advisory channels, while Ether ownership remains “overwhelmingly” in the direct investor segment.
He described “various stages of approving this” across the wirehouses, including one firm “starting to put it in model portfolios,” and noted that BlackRock’s own model-portfolio team “early in 2025… put IBIT allocations into one of our model portfolios.” For institutions, he argued that further episodes of Bitcoin “decoupling from equities in a… distressed market environment” would be “critical” in cementing its role as a diversifier.
Taken together, Mitchnick’s comments sketched the contours of BlackRock’s next steps without tipping its hand. On an XRP ETF, he didn’t confirm or deny anything—but he gave a clear readout of the bar any new product must clear: credible client demand, a defensible investment thesis, sufficient market depth and maturity, and a well-defined role in diversified portfolios.
At press time, XRP traded at $2.71.
