BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF commercial got made fun of a LOT in the crypto media and on Twitter.
But they destroyed all of you, as usual.
Bitcoin attracts a younger crowd for the most part, and for obvious reasons.
- It’s new money
- There’s a ton of upside
- It’s digital
- It’s not the easiest thing for boomers to figure out
But because of this, most younger people who have the means and the desire to hold Bitcoin already do.
They don’t need some fee-ridden vehicle on the stock market to hold Bitcoin. They’re good.
So when the ETF wars came to the surface in late 2023, the race was on for the most…..millennial money??
Here’s Hashdex’s commercial, ticker symbol DeFi
Well done I’d say. Moving people from the old into the modern.
But the music — very 35-and-under friendly.
We can go even younger though. See VanEck’s offering.
And then there was probably the most well-known commercial of the bunch from Bitwise’s…
A bit better, but you’re bringing in a guy who was famous for peddling cheap Mexican beer.
Not Zoomer-focused by any means, but targeting the middle generations more than the others I’d say.
And then there was BlackRock, taking a trip to Boomertown. You may as well have played ragtime music in the background.
I’ll reiterate. This ad got made fun of a LOT.
……by really foolish people.
It was a plain vanilla, run-of-the-mill ETF ad, directed at the generations who buy ETFs.
Read that last sentence again though.
Who are ETF’s marketed to typically? GenX and Boomers.
Why? Because that’s who buys them.
Why? BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE THE MONEY IS!!!
The commercial took something a lot of older people don’t take seriously or are intimidated by, made it serious, and calmly said “Hey Boomers, we’re BlackRock. It’s okey. We got this.”
Apart from Blackrock and Fidelity, you had all of the other issuers issuers fighting for a small piece of the “young people with barely any money who doesn’t care about ETFs anyway” pie.
And they absolutely HANDED the rich generations on a silver platter to Blackrock, who simply did exactly what they were supposed to do when it came to advertising.
Take the fear out of BTC investing, and explain how ETF and Blackrock are the safe and easy way to invest in it.
It was the perfect commercial.
And to nobody’s surprise, Blackrock’s IBIT leads all spot bitcoin ETF inflows by a good margin. Fidelity, who did not advertise IIRC, is in second.
https://x.com/JSeyff/status/1752327502565933246?s=20
Keep in mind, Greyscale is tops because of previous inflows and tops for the week because of conversions, not because people are flocking to their spot offering and its 90 basis point fee.
I’m going to say it again.
Every other issuer who advertised targeted the generations with the least amount of money, and the generations who were least likely to want or need a spot Bitcoin ETF.
And left the generations with the most money and largest need for a spot Bitcoin ETF to Blackrock, who just copy/pasted every other ETF commercial they’ve ever done for the win.
Every other issuer decided is was a good idea to all fight each other for that hot South Sudan market, and said “Here Blackrock, you take the entire United States, Europe, Australia, Japan and Singapore LOL!!”
Conclusion
No alpha here, I’m just amazed at how all of the other issuers competed for the generations with no money, on purpose, then handed the pot of gold to Blackrock, and then made fun of them for hitting the uncontested layup.
Sometimes the mega-institutions still exist for reasons beyond the illicit and the oligarchic.
— VP