Cathie Wood, the chief executive of Ark Investment Management, delivered a bullish prediction on the future price of bitcoin at a cryptocurrency conference on Friday, arguing that the world’s largest digital asset could potentially reach $3.8 million per coin.
Speaking at the Bitcoin Investor Day event in New York City, Ms. Wood said her firm’s existing forecast that bitcoin could hit $1.5 million by 2030 may need to be revised significantly higher to account for growing institutional adoption and new investment vehicles.
“With this institutional green light that the SEC has provided, kicking and screaming though it did, the analysis we’ve done is that if institutional investors were to allocate a little more than 5% of their portfolios to bitcoin, as we think they will over time, that alone would add $2.3 million to the projection I just gave you,” Ms. Wood told the moderator, AnthonyPompliano.
Ms. Wood was referring to the recent approval of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ark Invest was among 11 major firms, including BlackRock and Fidelity, granted the regulatory greenlight to launch ETFs directly holding bitcoin earlier this year.
Since these products hit the market, demand has surged, setting new records for inflows into U.S. ETFs while simultaneously stimulating demand for bitcoin itself as the funds invest directly in the cryptocurrency.
In January, Ark had published its initial $1.5 million price target for bitcoin, asserting that the digital currency could see substantial growth as it develops into an asset class with institutional backing akin to gold, bonds or stocks. On Friday, bitcoin was trading around $63,768.
Ms. Wood believes the upcoming “halving” event for bitcoin, expected in April, could act as a catalyst propelling its price even higher. The halving is a pre-coded operation that slashes the reward for bitcoin miners in half every few years to control inflation.
Historically, previous bitcoin halvings in 2012, 2016 and 2020 have preceded major price rallies in the year following each event, with gains of 8,069%, 284% and 559% respectively.
“We think [bitcoin] has miles to go,” Ms. Wood stated. “We’re at the very beginning of really putting in place the financial ecosystem native to the internet and disintermediating all of the toll-takers.”
Ark Invest has emerged as one of the most vocal corporate champions of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies more broadly. The firm’s Ark Next Generation Internet ETF holds stakes in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust as well as crypto-related companies like Coinbase.
While bitcoin has made impressive gains over the past year amid growing institutional embrace, skeptics argue the cryptocurrency remains highly speculative and volatile. There are also lingering concerns around its energy usage and potential for illicit usage.
Whether Ms. Wood’s lofty $3.8 million forecast proves accurate could hinge on how quickly and deeply institutional capital truly flows into bitcoin in the coming years. For now, the latest projection underscores the soaring optimism around bitcoin among its most fervent supporters.
