Bitcoin continues to have ‘positive skewness to its volatility’: BlackRock’s Cohen

BlackRock’s Samara Cohen said that this is an “important moment to play out” for bitcoin on the Empire podcast

April 28, 2025 11:00 am

BlackRock CIO of ETF and index investments Samara Cohen | Permissionless III by Mike Lawrence for Blockworks

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This morning’s Empire podcast was all things BlackRock.

Empire co-host Jason Yanowitz chatted with BlackRock’s Samara Cohen. There’s a lot of insight to be gleaned from Cohen, who’s a powerhouse in her own right, and she certainly delivered.

It’s no secret at this point that bitcoin’s not really acting the way some folks think it should — that is, being a safe haven like gold during market downturns.

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“This is an important moment to play out in terms of how Bitcoin’s price performance does show up. I mean, this environment of market volatility is really induced by cross-border tension, and supply chain complexity like this should be Bitcoin’s environment,” Cohen noted.

Cohen added that, if anything, bitcoin’s just increased its correlation with equities.

And yet, BlackRock’s bitcoin ETP IBIT hasn’t seen the level of outflows one might expect. For Cohen, this shows that the price action was focused on retail and speculative positions held by institutions, since IBIT can’t be levered in the same way bitcoin can be.

She added: “ Bitcoin hasn’t had the volatility in the downtrade. It continues to have this kind of positive skewness to its volatility.”

But it’s not just bitcoin that Cohen or BlackRock are focused on. They’re also quite bullish on tokenization and how it can improve capital markets.

“We are very much focused on the path to more tokenization in markets. We are very focused on the utility of bridges to investors,” she told Yanowitz.

My takeaway? BlackRock can’t stop, won’t stop its crypto journey. This is just the beginning.

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