Cathie Wood of Ark Invest Sees More Institutional Investors Entering Bitcoin Market Amid Bank Crisis – Here's What You Need to Know

cryptonews.com:

Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood believes Bitcoin's rally amid the recent banking crisis will only “attract more institutions.”

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Wood said Bitcoin's price behavior through the crisis “is going to attract more institutions.” She claimed this could help build a bull case for the flagship cryptocurrency to surge to around $500,000.  

She noted that during a banking crisis, liquidity dries out, which usually hurts assets. “The fact that Bitcoin moved in a very different way from the equity markets, in particular, was quite instructive,” she added. 

Corporate treasuries had previously been pulling away from having bitcoin in their balance sheets because regulators themselves were pushing them to divest, she said.

Bitcoin is up by more than 27% over the past two weeks, according to data by CoinGecko. This is despite the recent turbulence in the US banking sector that saw three major banks collapse in one week. 

In a note to investors, Ark Invest argued that the rally is a sign of Bitcoin's value as a safe haven asset. Ark Invest's Yassine Elmandjra wrote in the firm's weekly newsletter:

"In the face of the U.S. and European banking crises, bitcoin's price appreciation suggests that lax regulatory oversight had no impact on the decentralized, transparent, and auditable crypto asset ecosystem."

"Last weekend, when many banks were closed, and others were facing bank runs, bitcoin didn't skip a beat: it settled ~$33 billion, facilitated ~600k transactions, issued 2,037 new BTC at a steady and predictable ~1.8% inflation rate, attracted ~1 million new addresses, and generated $43 million for miners securing the network," Elmandjra added.

Ark Invest has been bullish on crypto despite the recent crypto meltdown