A BlackRock executive recently predicted a $5.4 trillion Bitcoin market

Jay Jacobs, BlackRock's head of US thematic and active ETFs, said there is plenty of room for bitcoin adoption. Jay still estimates a 30 trillion Brazilian real (~$5.4 trillion) market in the coming years.

The executive attended a digital assets conference in Brazil on Thursday. Mercado Bitcoin introduced the event in partnership with CME Group, DeriBit and FireBlock.

BlackRock is the largest fund manager on the planet and one of the first to license and issue Bitcoin ETFs in the US.

Why do investors want Bitcoin?

Jacobs said the fund manager started looking at Bitcoin after growing interest from clients looking for a variety of assets in their portfolios.

“They (investors) want something other than stocks and bonds. If you look at the last couple of years, there is a growing correlation between stocks and bonds. It was especially difficult to find differentiation in a high-cost environment. And then people tried to explore the possibility of finding alternatives. Maybe that's moving to the private markets,” Jacobs explained.

Read more: Who will have the most Bitcoins in 2024?

Additionally, another demand that drove BTC adoption at BlackRock was sophisticated investors looking for a more liquid portfolio to diversify their investments.

That BlackRock now manages about 370,000 BTC, emerging as one of the largest holders of Bitcoin. It has already surpassed MicroStrategy's Bitcoin holdings And now it is only behind Satoshi Nakamoto and crypto exchange Binance.

BlackRock iShare Bitcoin Trust's (IBIT) Bitcoin stash is worth $22.33 billion, according to the latest data from SoSoValue.

When asked about the BTC rally, Jacobs said he could not answer. However, he believes that diversifying investments in the most valuable cryptocurrency on the market is a proven strategy.

“It's hard to draw a picture for every portfolio. “What we've found is that it's really important to look at certain investors who are resilient to volatility, resilient to downturns, and have a long-term view,” Jacobs said.

Moreover, Jacobs pointed out that BlackRock is also focused on Bitcoin education.

“We want to make it accessible and help people understand Bitcoin first,” Jacobs said.

Read more: Bitcoin (BTC) Price Prediction 2024/2025/2030

For Jacobs, Bitcoin is a financial alternative, Ethereum is more of a bet on blockchain adoption. The executive said that one of the trends that are changing the world today is geopolitical diversity. This is currently changing supply chains.

We look at the emergence of AI for further technological advancement, greater technology adoption and digitization. We see demographic changes around the world. In some countries we see aging populations, while others in very young markets. I think this could be another favorable wind for digital assets. The markets where digital assets can be most valuable are the majority of Millennials and Gen Z who are very digital natives,” said Jacobs.