During a Wednesday interview with CNBC, Ark Invest head Cathie Wood doubled down on her uber-bullish prediction about the cryptocurrency industry, claiming that her firm continues to stand by its ambitious $500,000 call.
The cryptocurrency market entered crisis mode following the collapse of the FTX exchange in early November. While this disaster gave crypto naysayers an opportunity to dust off their gloomiest predictions, Bitcoiners were quick to distance themselves from the disaster.
Wood recalled that Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of the failed cryptocurrency exchange, was critical of the largest cryptocurrency. "Actually, Sam Bankman-Fried didn't like Bitcoin at all," she stressed.
The famous stock picker, whose investment management firm terribly underperformed in 2021, argues that the disgraced crypto mogul did not appreciate Bitcoin enough because of its decentralization and transparency.She further argues that only opaque and centralized cryptocurrency companies, such as Celsius and FTX, went underwater in 2021.
Despite this turbulence, Bitcoin and Ethereum worked perfectly fine. "All transactions were completed, and all smart contracts opened and closed," Wood noted.
Now, the idea of transparency and decentralization is taking hold, according to Wood. She considers Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two largest cryptocurrencies, to be the best manifestations of that.
As reported by U.Today, the superstar investor predicted that Bitcoin was likely to hit $1 million by the end of this decade in November. However, she admitted that the FTX debacle was likely to delay institutional adoption.
Tomiwabold Olajide
