Bitcoin ETFs bleeding but BlackRock doubles down on DeFi — long crypto infrastructure over spot BTC
Big-money investors are fleeing Bitcoin at a record pace, but BlackRock is simultaneously ramping up its push into decentralized finance. While the crypto market bleeds overall, the institutions are betting big on the infrastructure layer.
Idea
CoinDesk reports that spot Bitcoin ETFs suffered their worst month on record with $4 billion in outflows, and a separate story notes that traditional risk-on signals like Iran de-escalation are lifting stocks while crypto gets left behind. Bitcoin is clearly out of favor with institutional money right now. Yet in the same breath, BlackRock — the world's largest asset manager — just integrated with Ethena to give its institutional clients access to DeFi yields, sending ENA up 8%. This is a stark divergence: while spot crypto ETFs bleed on macro fears, the smartest institutional money is quietly building positions in decentralized finance infrastructure. The trade is to ride the relative strength of DeFi tokens backed by institutional adoption while the broader crypto market searches for a bottom.
What happened since
| Symbol | Dir | T+1 | T+5 | T+20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ETH | LONG | +2.37% ✓ | +13.68% ✓ | — |
Price change since publication · updated Jul 11