During a panel discussion hosted by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) last week, CEO of investment management firm Ark Investment Management Cathie Wood shared some decidedly bullish sentiments about bitcoin’s past and present.
With BTC recently crossing a total market capitalization of $1 trillion, Wood provided her outlook on where demand for the asset is headed.
“If we add up the potential demand relative to the limited supply, we come up with incredible numbers over the long term,” she said. “We have just begun. $1 trillion is nothing compared to where this ultimately will be.”
Wood explained that a significant motivator for her bullish outlook has been the growing demand for bitcoin, particularly from large institutions that are looking for ways to curb the inflating supply of their treasury assets.
“We are now moving into what I believe will be primetime and I think helping it along is the demand from institutional investors,” Wood explained on the panel. “The most surprising development recently … is that companies are now diversifying their cash with bitcoin.”
She also noted that the institutions are increasingly looking at bitcoin as a way to conduct business more seamlessly across borders.
“One of the reasons, as Tesla announced yesterday ,is that it would like to do business in bitcoin,” she said. “Especially in regions of the world where… the conversion from one fiat to another is prohibitively expensive.”