ARK Invest chief Cathie Wood would unambiguously choose Bitcoin as a defensive asset, Bloomberg reports.
Wood explained that she expects an era of price declines as technologies such as artificial intelligence, electric vehicles and blockchain advance. During the Merryn Talks Money podcast, when asked which of the three asset classes — gold, cash or the first cryptocurrency — she would prefer to hold for 10 years, ARK Invest’s chief replied:
“Undoubtedly, Bitcoin. It is a hedge against both inflation and deflation, since there is no counterparty risk. This is digital gold.”
Wood also added that she expects convergence between AI and the first cryptocurrency. In her words, this will allow solving micro-tasks around the world and provide a level of division of labour we can’t yet imagine.
Earlier, the head of ARK Invest called Bitcoin the best form of protection against wealth erosion and a hedge for developing countries. In the wake of the recent banking crisis in the United States she described digital assets as “safe havens”.
In April Wood reaffirmed this assertion and noted that after the collapses of banks Silvergate, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank Bitcoin demonstrated the most “impressive” resilience.
In April, ARK Invest and 21Shares filed a third joint application to launch an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on the first cryptocurrency.
Subsequent similar applications to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) were submitted by BlackRock, Valkyrie, Fidelity Investments, WisdomTree and Invesco. In the listings under consideration, ARK Invest with 21Shares are above the rest.
In August Wood did not rule out that the SEC would approve several spot Bitcoin ETFs.