BlackRock Does Not Control Bitcoin: Its Power Lies at the Gateway

• IBIT managed USD 67.589 billion as of October 2, 2026.
• Coinbase holds IBIT's BTC and BNY Mellon manages its cash.

Starting this article with the metaphor of the Trojan horse is tempting. What seems like an offering ends up functioning as the gateway to conquer a city from within. If we translate that classic tale to Bitcoin, the suspicion would be similar.

The financial vehicles celebrated as a gateway to institutional adoption could introduce, along with new capital, forms of concentration and influence characteristic of the system that the network created by Satoshi Nakamoto sought to avoid.

And this is where BlackRock inevitably occupies the center of that discussion. The asset manager administers the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT), the largest bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the world. List of ETFs and exchanges with the most BTC. Source: Bitcoin Treasuries.

From the outside, it feels like a financial institution of that scale has managed to infiltrate a system created to do away with intermediaries. However, from there to thinking that the manager acts as an indirect arm of governments or central banks to control Bitcoin is a considerable leap.

The reality is that there is no evidence to demonstrate that relationship, and moreover, the architecture of Bitcoin limits the power that can be obtained by accumulating coins. BlackRock's influence appears at another level: in the infrastructure through which a growing portion of traditional capital gains exposure to BTC without using the network, managing private keys, or assuming custody.

The IBIT began trading in January 2024 alongside other approved spot bitcoin ETFs in the United States and has since dominated that segment by size. Its growth does not grant it special rights within Bitcoin, although it does give it weight in how a significant portion of the financial market accesses the asset.
The IBIT has over 800,000 bitcoin under management. Source: Bitcoin Treasuries.

Having More Bitcoin Does Not Mean Governing Bitcoin

To understand where BlackRock's power ends, it is advisable to separate ownership from governance, because Bitcoin does not function like a company where each share represents a vote, nor is there a board capable of changing the rules by its own decision.

Nodes independently verify that transactions and blocks comply with the conditions set by the software they run, as explained by CriptoNoticias. Among other things, they check that no one spends coins they do not own, that signatures are valid, and that the issuance of new BTC follows the rules established by the protocol.

Miners, for their part, perform another function: they group transactions, produce blocks, and compete to incorporate them into the chain. Their computational power does not allow them to impose any decision, as a block that violates the rules can be rejected even if it required a huge amount of work to produce.

Developers, meanwhile, can propose improvements and write new versions of the code, but cannot force participants to install them. Users, companies, node operators, and miners ultimately define which set of rules gains economic acceptance through the software they choose to use.

This distribution explains why owning a large amount of BTC does not allow for unilaterally modifying the limit of 21 million, invalidating a legitimate transaction, or altering the conditions that the rest follow.

The IBIT Investor Does Not Directly Own BTC

Those who buy a share of IBIT on Nasdaq gain economic exposure to the price of bitcoin, but do not receive the coins in their own address nor control the private keys associated with them.

The structure incorporates several intermediaries. BlackRock manages the vehicle, Coinbase Custody holds the BTC, and BNY Mellon participates in cash and management-related tasks. Around it, brokers, authorized participants, and the exchange itself where shares are traded also appear. This is how BlackRock's ETF operates. Source: CriptoNoticias.

Here, the relationship of the investor with Bitcoin changes. The network allows for maintaining and transferring value without relying on a bank, a manager, or a custodian, while the ETF places those intermediaries back between the user and the asset.

This does not change the functioning of the network, but it does transform that user's relationship with it.

If a custodian received a court order regarding certain coins, for example, the restriction would apply to the funds it controls and to those who depend on its service. It would not prevent another person with their own keys from continuing to send a valid transaction.

This difference is central to measuring how much power financial institutions accumulate.

BlackRock Does Not Decide When to Buy on Its Own

In another chapter of this series, this reporter also analyzed a frequent confusion: interpreting each entry of BTC linked to IBIT as a discretionary decision by BlackRock.

The fund operates passively, and the variations in its holdings respond mainly to the mechanism used to create or redeem shares based on demand. When new investors enter, the structure adjusts the assets backing those shares; when the opposite occurs, the movement can also be transferred to the reserves.

This means that BlackRock does not buy bitcoin because its managers anticipate a rise. To a large extent, it channels demand coming from its clients.

However, acting as an intermediary does not make its position irrelevant. IBIT allows financial advisors, funds, wealth managers, and individuals to incorporate exposure to BTC within the same accounts where they manage stocks, bonds, and other instruments.

The manager does not need to modify a line of Bitcoin code to gain influence over that access. Its advantage lies in distribution, scale, and the ability to insert the asset within an infrastructure already used by the traditional market.

Can BlackRock Function as a Proxy for Governments?

The "proxy" hypothesis requires much stronger evidence than the existence of a regulated ETF.

In this context, a proxy would be an actor used by another institution to exert influence indirectly. To argue that BlackRock fulfills that role for governments or central banks, one would need to demonstrate coordination, instructions, shared incentives, or some concrete mechanism to intervene on Bitcoin through the manager.

The IBIT structure does not demonstrate any of that.

Another issue is that BlackRock and the companies supporting the fund operate within the U.S. regulatory system. Coinbase Custody, Nasdaq, BNY Mellon, and other participants are subject to laws, sanctions, and judicial decisions capable of conditioning their activities.

That state power exists, but it acts on the intermediaries and on the BTC they manage, not on the rules that the rest of the network must accept.

Here it is necessary to clarify that regulatory pressure is one thing and protocol control is another.

Concentration Occurs Around the Network

Moreover, there is another issue to consider: BlackRock is not the only gateway. Fidelity, Grayscale, and other managers have been administering similar products since 2024, so the phenomenon cannot be understood by observing IBIT alone.

The relevant question is how much bitcoin ends up under the custody of a few companies and what proportion of institutional capital prefers to expose itself through these structures instead of holding the coins directly.

There appears a deeper transformation. Bitcoin can maintain a decentralized network while its financial layer becomes more concentrated.

Wall Street does not need to take control of the protocol to occupy a strategic position around it. It is enough to manage some of the main avenues through which capital decides to enter.

BlackRock does not control the house. But it has managed to build one of its most trafficked entrances. Tags: Bitcoin (BTC) Latest Prices and Trading