Despite bitcoin’s strong January, the cryptocurrency just suffered one of its biggest and longest drawdowns in its history. Ark Invest chief investment officer Cathie Wood is still bullish on the cryptocurrency, however, and continues betting its price will eventually reach $500,000, she told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Wednesday morning. Her outlook is even “a little higher than that.” “Starting with [the financial crisis of] 2008-2009, which is when bitcoin really debuted, and even more so after the crypto fallout this past year [and] the collapse in many companies, this idea of transparency and decentralization is taking hold, and bitcoin and ethereum are the two best manifestations of that in the crypto world,” the Ark Invest CEO and chief investment officer said. Wood also said that Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of the fallen FTX crypto exchange whose alleged fraud has shaken investors, “didn’t like bitcoin” and that his views were at odds with the crypto pillars of decentralization and transparency. “What companies went under? They were the highly centralized, non-transparent, opaque companies: FTX, Celsius, Three Arrows Capital,” Wood said. Whereas, “if you look at what happened to bitcoin, the network, and ethereum, the network, they really didn’t skip a beat at all. Transactions were completed. All smart contracts opened and closed.” Wood is also a big investor in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, known by its ticker GBTC, through the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) . Investors have grown concerned about the harm GBTC could do to shareholders, with the shares trading at a growing discount to net asset value and the structure of the trust being such that shares can’t be redeemed. “There’s a huge discount there that will close at some point,” Wood said. “I have no idea how the lawsuit’s going to play out. I do think it’s good that this discussion is taking place.” Last year, Grayscale sued the Securities and Exchange Commission over its decision to block the conversion of its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust to an exchange-traded fund. The D.C. Court of Appeals has scheduled oral arguments for March 7. “The SEC has dragged its feet in terms of a bitcoin ETF, while approving a bitcoin futures ETF – it just doesn’t make any sense to us,” Wood added. “This discussion is going to be a very good one and the news around the trial is going to be very good for bitcoin generally, as more and more people begin to understand bitcoin itself and GBTC particularly.” Wood just posted her best month ever as her beaten-down favorite stocks staged a big comeback in the new year. Her flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) jumped 3.7% on Tuesday, bringing its January return to 27.8% and marking its strongest month since its inception in 2014.
