Bitcoin Is the Ultimate Insurance Policy: Cathie Wood

With only your seed phrase, she says “you’ll be able to cross a border and reclaim your wealth.”

By Andrew Throuvalas

ARK Invest's Cathie Wood. Image: ARK Invest

Bitcoin is the greatest form of defense against wealth confiscation and an insurance policy for the developing world, according to ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood.

The investor—a longtime bull for the crypto industry—stands by her $1 million Bitcoin price target, believing the asset presents opportunities for wealth preservation to the rich and poor alike. 

“There’s hyperinflation all over the world as their currencies have fallen apart,” said Wood in an interview with Yahoo Finance on Thursday. “Those populations need a fallback—an insurance policy like Bitcoin.”

Wood believes that high-net-worth individuals also have much to gain by using Bitcoin as a shield against “confiscation” through inflation. The top cryptocurrency by market cap has a supply limit of 21 million coins, making it immune to debasement through money printing, as is common of fiat currencies.

 But when it comes to defending against explicit confiscation in the “troubled” spots of the world like Russia and China, she says the asset can assist with that too.

Though cryptocurrency users often store the keys to their coins using wallet hardware, their wallets are technically recoverable from anywhere if they can remember their unique seed phrase—usually a list of 12 to 24 random words. 

“Just keep that key in your head, and at some point, you’ll be able to cross a border and reclaim your wealth,” Wood added.

Wood’s flagship ARK Innovation fund had its best month ever in January, dating all the way back to its inception in 2014. It closed the month at $39.93 per share, up 28 since January.

Much of its gains were made on the backs of tech stocks including Tesla and Roku, which grew by 68% and 45% respectively. The firm’s crypto investments including Coinbase (COIN) and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) have also played a role, now up 142% and 67% year to date.

Grayscale has failed thus far to transition its Bitcoin fund into a Bitcoin spot ETF—as have Cathie Wood’s attempts to launch a similar product in the United States.