ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood has reiterated her belief in the decentralized digital currency bitcoin as a superior hedge against both inflation and deflation. During her Bloomberg interview, she highlighted the U.S. regional banking crisis in March as a key event that demonstrated the strength of bitcoin. The crisis led to the failure of several lenders and a subsequent jump in the price of bitcoin of nearly 50% to $35,000.
Wood emphasized bitcoin’s decentralized nature, which eliminates counterparty risk and ensures transparency through public ledgers. She contrasted this with centralized organizations, such as banks, which lack comparable transparency, making them riskier investments.
In these discussions, Wood compared the performance of bitcoin to the US stock index benchmark, claiming that bitcoin has shown superior performance based on historical data. She also warned of the risks associated with investing in centralized financial authorities due to their lack of reliability in times of macroeconomic events.
Wood’s belief in bitcoin’s potential is reflected not only in her words, but also in her actions. In 2015, she invested $100,000 in bitcoin when it was valued at around $250 – an investment that is now worth more than $13 million. This investment has returned an astounding 14,000% despite the volatility of her other stock investments.
ARK Invest maintains a bullish outlook on bitcoin, predicting it could reach $1.48 million by 2030 in a bullish scenario or $682,800 in a base case. The firm highlights bitcoin’s strong fundamentals such as decentralization, auditability and transparency. It has also filed for a spot bitcoin ETF, which is currently under review by the SEC.
Finally, Wood shared her vision of an optimistic future where AI and bitcoin intersect, leading to organizational transformation, cost reduction, and increased productivity. She foresees a new era of deflation driven by technologies such as AI, electric vehicles, robotics, genomic sequencing, and blockchain. Currently, bitcoin is valued at $34,848.11 per unit (BTC/USD), with a market capitalization of $680.74 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $12.48 billion.
