ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood continues to predict that Bitcoin will be valued at almost $1.5 million within seven years—upping a previous prediction.
Key Details
- ARK Invest released its seventh edition of the Big Ideas 2023 report on February 1, discussing how technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, and electric vehicles will innovate the economy, affirming her positions from a previous January 12 blog post.
- Among Cathie Wood’s more audacious claims, she says that Bitcoin will exceed $1.48 million in value by 2030. Her bear market prediction is $258,500.
- Her peak prediction would raise the value to more than 6,000 times and value the entire Bitcoin economy at $31 trillion.
- Wood affirmed her stance in a Monday CNBC interview, saying crypto is “on the right track.”
Key Details
As we previously reported, Bitcoin saw a sizable surge in January as prices rallied 35%. The current price of Bitcoin has fluctuated between $21,500 and $25,000 for the past month, with its value momentarily sitting at $23,507.08. Bitcoin’s peak valuation was nearly $70,000 in November 2021.
Even with that boost, Cathie Wood remains unusually bullishness on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, leaning heavily into the market and buying shares of CoinBase in her prediction that the market will rebound in the aftermath of the collapse of FTX and continue growing as blockchain technologies are widely embraced as a technological innovation.
Wood predicts that Bitcoin could become 10% of the M2 money supply for smaller countries as a means to curb hyperinflation, it could capture 25% of the remittance asset market, 50% of the digital gold market, 6.5% of investor portfolio holdings, and could even replace gold reserves for central banks.
The Problem
This prediction goes against the general tone of the market. Berkshire-Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett dismissed Bitcoin last March, saying the entire market doesn’t produce anything. Key indicators suggest that the crypto economy is slowing down, with leading evangelists like Peter Thiel quietly pulling out of the market last year. The collapse of the NFT market and the destruction of dozens of major crypto exchanges also signal trouble in the crypto economy.
As the investment website The Motley Fool notes, Wood’s prediction would conservatively exceed the valuation of entire markets and industries. If Bitcoin’s valuation reaches $1 million, the Bitcoin economy will exceed the market cap of Apple by tenfold at $21 trillion. $1.5 million would nearly exceed the value of the entire S&P 500 and all of the gold in the world.
Notable Quotes
“FTX, Celsius, and 3AC are completely opaque and centralized. Those were the companies that went under, but blockchains like BTC and Ether didn’t skip a beat, and transactions did not stop. And that has given us a lot of confidence,” says Wood.
“We believe Bitcoin’s long-term opportunity is strengthening. Despite a turbulent year, Bitcoin has not skipped a beat. Its network fundamentals have strengthened, and its holder base has become more long-term focused. Contagion caused by centralized counterparties has elevated Bitcoin’s value propositions: decentralization, auditability, and transparency. The price of one bitcoin could exceed $1 million in the next decade,” says the report.