Nicholas Peach, Head of Asia-Pacific iShares at BlackRock, the world's largest ETF provider, made a bold prediction at the Consensus Hong Kong 2026 conference. He stated that if financial advisors across Asia were to recommend a modest 1% allocation to cryptocurrencies in standard investment portfolios, it could unlock approximately $2 trillion in new capital inflows into the digital asset market.
Peach framed this projection as "fun math," based on the roughly $108 trillion in household wealth across Asia. A 1% allocation from this pool equates to just under $2 trillion, a sum he noted is equivalent to about 60% of the total cryptocurrency market's value at the time of his statement. He emphasized this not as speculative hype, but to illustrate the vast scale of traditional finance capital sitting on the sidelines.
The executive highlighted that this potential shift is being driven by rising institutional acceptance of cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs), particularly in Asia. "Some model advisors are now recommending a 1% allocation to cryptocurrencies in your standard investment portfolio," Peach said. He noted that Asian investors have already constituted a significant share of flows into U.S.-listed crypto ETFs, and there has been a broader boom in ETF adoption across the region for various asset classes.
Peach tied this potential inflow directly to BlackRock's own success with its U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, which launched in January 2024 and became the fastest-growing ETF in history, now holding nearly $53 billion in assets under management. He indicated that several Asian markets, including Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea, are moving toward launching or expanding their own crypto ETF offerings, a trend expected to deepen as regulatory clarity improves.
Independent analysts and academics, like Dr. Lin Mei from the National University of Singapore, corroborate the logic, noting that a 1% allocation to a non-correlated, higher-volatility asset like Bitcoin is a prudent, risk-managed entry point that can enhance portfolio performance. The projected $2 trillion inflow is seen as a catalyst that would not only boost market capitalization and reduce volatility but also fund critical infrastructure development, accelerate regulatory frameworks, and fuel innovation in decentralized finance (DeFi) and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).
Peach concluded by stressing the transformative potential of even conservative adoption from traditional finance, stating, "The pools of capital that are available in traditional finance are unbelievably large. It doesn't take much in terms of adoption to lead to really significant financial results."
