BlackRock’s head of digital assets, Robbie Mitchnick, signaled a shift in how large investors view crypto, pointing to artificial intelligence (AI) as a more meaningful driver than the expansion of new tokens.

Speaking about client behavior, Mitchnick described a market that has moved away from broad exposure to smaller assets. He said the turnover among top tokens has been “pretty ferocious,” with only bitcoin (BTC) and, later, ether (ETH) maintaining consistent positions. Many newer tokens, he suggested, fail to hold long-term relevance.

That pattern has shaped investor demand. “The majority of that is nonsense,” Mitchnick said at the Digital Asset Summit in New York on Tuesday, referring to the vast number of tokens in circulation. As…