Bitcoin's widespread use for everyday payments in the future is just "an unexpected upside option," according to Robbie Mitchnick, head of digital assets at BlackRock.
Robbie Mitchnick, head of digital assets at BlackRock, said most clients of the world's largest asset managers don't consider using Bitcoin for everyday payments when deciding whether to invest in the asset.
“I think for us and most of our customers today, they don’t really underwrite that global payments network scenario,” Mitchnick said in a podcast interview posted on YouTube on Friday.
“It's probably an option that has value beyond its actual value,” Mitchnick said.
He said this doesn't mean Bitcoin (great deal when trading bitcoin at BingX ) won't eventually be widely used in payments, but he called that scenario "somewhat speculative," emphasizing that investors are more focused on the "digital gold" or store of value thesis.
“A lot needs to happen” to change that, Mitchnick said.
“There is a lot of work to be done in terms of Bitcoin scaling, Lightning, and other things to make that happen,” he said. In August 2024, Galaxy Research suggested that most layer 2 Bitcoin scaling networks, especially “rollups,” may not be sustainable in the long run despite their popularity as a promising way to keep Bitcoin payments cheap, fast, and decentralized.
Meanwhile, Mitchnick said stablecoins have been “extremely successful” in the payments space. “They really have great product-market fit as a payment tool, allowing value to move efficiently,” he said.
“Stablecoins have the potential to significantly expand their current use cases, not just limited to the crypto and DeFi trading ecosystems but also to retail remittance payments, corporate, multinational, cross-border transactions and Capital market settlement activities,” he said.
He said Bitcoin has more room to compete in the retail remittance space than in other areas, but he did not rule out the possibility. “It is possible at some point, but the guarantee at this point is still speculative,” he said.
Stablecoins are 'expanding faster than' expected
ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood recently stated that stablecoins “expanding faster than expected” is the reason she lowered her 2030 Bitcoin price prediction.
“Stablecoins are slowly taking over some of the Vai that we thought Bitcoin would play,” she said.
Wood explained that she previously predicted Bitcoin could hit $1.5 million by 2030, but with stablecoins now serving many of the use cases she thought Bitcoin would dominate, she said she may cut that forecast by about $300,000.
“I think emerging markets have a huge Vai to play in this, and we're starting to see institutions in the US focusing on new payment methods,” she said.
Tether co-founder Reeve Collins told Cointelegraph in September that he hopes “all currencies” will become stablecoins by 2030 as part of a broader shift that will see all forms of finance move to chain .
Source: Cointelegraph
