'Wall of worry' led to digital wallets, blockchain tech ignored: Cathie Wood
ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood believes that digital wallets and blockchain tech were among “game-changing innovations” that the equity markets largely ignored in 2022.
In a Jan. 12 blog post on the ARK Invest website, Wood suggested that the equity market faced a “wall of worry” in 2022, caused by fears of entrenched inflation and higher interest rates, and largely ignored a number of innovative technologies.
Wood highlighted that digital wallets are “replacing cash and credit cards,” noting that they overtook cash as the top transaction method for offline commerce in 2020.
Further arguing that digital wallets should not be overlooked, she noted that they also accounted for approximately 50% of global online commerce in 2021.
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Wood suggested that the recent collapse of crypto exchange FTX hasn’t affected the larger mission of what public blockchains were intended for. She noted:
“Public Blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum have not skipped a beat in processing transactions.”
Wood highlighted how the FTX collapse educated crypto investors to be more diligent with where they store their crypto assets, saying that the share of trading volume on decentralized exchanges, which allow for trading without a central intermediary, rose 37%, jumping from 8.35% to 11.4%.
Wood said she has never in her “30 years working in portfolio management” experienced such unstable market conditions, saying she has never seen “markets this dislocated.”
The CEO suggested that the economy
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