Ark Invest's Cathie Wood: This Is What John Paulson Doesn't Understand About Bitcoin

Cathie Wood, the founder and CEO of Ark Investment Management, continues to be a believer in Bitcoin BTC/USD and the world of decentralized currencies.

In a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, Wood said there's a key aspect that gold bugs like John Paulson are missing when it comes to evaluating Bitcoin as an asset.

Wood Says Bitcoin 'Much More Than' Digital Gold: “Many investors who have spent their careers focused on gold cannot understand the digital concept associated with gold. What we think he [Paulson] is missing is this is much more than a store of value or digital gold,” she said.

“Bitcoin, in particular, is a new global monetary system. It’s a rules-based monetary policy which is completely decentralized, and therefore is not subject to the whims of policymakers. In fact, it’s a hedge against the whims of policymakers, especially in emerging markets.”

Wood’s comments come in reference to Paulson’s statements last week when he declared crypto to be a “worthless bubble” with no intrinsic value.

Wood On DeFi: The Ark founder went on to paint crypto in a positive light, citing the role of decentralized finance, or DeFi, in removing some of the existing frictions in financial markets today.

“What we think decentralized finance is doing is taking the friction out of a lot of financial services and taking the middlemen out of financial services,” she said.

Wood also had positive things to say about newly public crypto brokerage platforms like Coinbase Global Inc COIN and Robinhood Markets Inc HOOD.

“I actually think Robinhood has done a great service to the investing community,” she said, adding that they have “pivoted already to crypto in a magnificent way.”

BTC Price Action: At press time, Bitcoin was trading at $48,704.35, down 5.17%.