When it comes to potential value of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Cathie Wood is among the biggest bulls on the Street. But she believes another crypto could have even more upside potential.
The famed investor, founder, CIO and CEO of Ark Investment Management, known for its themed exchange traded funds (ETFs), hasn’t held back in her predictions of how high Bitcoin can trade. Wood has telegraphed her estimates about Bitcoin’s possible future value for a while, and even as Bitcoin is experiencing a selloff, she’s continued to reiterate those bullish calls: “The move actually by institutions into Bitcoin, if we were to choose Bitcoin and that seems to be their first stop, could add $500,000 to Bitcoin’s price if they move into roughly 5% over time,” a figure she’s referenced before, Wood reiterated on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday.
As of evening trading on Thursday, Bitcoin is worth roughly $48,000, following a selloff in recent weeks. But even as high as she believes Bitcoin could soar, Wood argues Ethereum, the other stalwart crypto whose blockchain technology underpins the likes of decentralized finance, or DeFi, and nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, could be even more underestimated at its current levels (as of Thursday evening, around $4,100, having also sold off).
Wood says that ARK is “working on” a price target for Ethereum “right now,” but she argues that “the fact that it is the venue, or the protocol, for DeFi and for NFTs suggests to us that it is even more undervalued than Bitcoin is, just because there are new worlds growing up on top of it,” Wood told Fortune on Thursday. Meanwhile Bitcoin, according to Wood, “is primarily a monetary system, and in El Salvador, a remittance system.”
But Wood, who has voiced her bullishness on Ethereum and its potential, says “I think we have miles to go there. It’s in its infancy.”
Indeed, she expects institutions to move further into not only Bitcoin (several companies, like Jack Dorsey’s Square, soon to be named Block, hold Bitcoin on their balance sheet), but also into ether, “especially because of DeFi; I think that that move is going to accelerate, and I think we’re going to be surprised at some institutions even dabbling in NFTs,” she said.
Whatever price tag Wood puts on that optimism, it surely won’t be conservative.
