Cathie Wood Says Ethereum 'Clearly' Satisfies A 'Huge Unmet Need'

ARK Invest founder Cathie Wood believes Ethereum ETH/USD plays a very important role in today’s crypto economy.

What Happened: Wood said in a recent episode of the Bankless podcast she had been surprised at how the Ether and the Ethereum network was “mushrooming” with stablecoins, NFTs, and decentralized finance.

“It’s clearly satisfying a huge unmet need – one of those needs is yield," she said.

Wood highlighted the “ridiculous rallies” in junk bond yield markets that have evidenced the demand for high-yielding financial instruments.

“This hunger for yield is being satisfied by a much more efficient financial ecosystem,” she said, referring to the growing world of decentralized finance.

See Also: Ethereum Rival Avalanche Hits All-Time High: Here's Why Its Founder Doesn't Want Elon Musk's Help In Boos

Why It's Important: The total value locked in DeFi protocols has grown from $200 million in January 2019 to more than $177 billion today.

In terms of developer activity, Ethereum was the most actively developed blockchain protocol with a total of 42,457 commits over the last 12 months, as seen from a study by Outlier Ventures.

“I remember saying, very early on, ‘follow the developers,’” Wood said. “Well, using that metric, Ethereum is off the charts…whereas Bitcoin is steady as she goes, still increasing, but clearly Ethereum, decentralized finance, NFTs have hit a responsive chord bringing the creator community into this ecosystem.”

Price Action: At press time, Ethereum was trading at a price of $3,500, dropping 3.17% over the past 24 hours. The leading altcoin has gained 11% since dropping to a low of $3,100 last week.