In Conversation with "Wood Sister" Cathie Wood: The Next Bull Market is Coming

Compiled & Edited by: Shenchao TechFlow

Guest: Cathie Wood, CEO & CIO of ARK Invest

Host: Robbie

Podcast Source: The Rollup

Original Title: Cathie Wood: The Next Bull Market Is Here

Broadcast Date: April 28, 2026

Editor's Introduction

Cathie Wood, founder of ARK Invest, recently appeared on The Rollup. In the interview, she provided explicit Bitcoin price predictions: $730,000 in the base case and $1.5 million in the bull case by 2030. She believes the market is currently in a bottoming phase, with on-chain analysis indicating an absolute bottom in the $50,000 to $55,000 range. She also put forward a macro judgment overlooked by the market: AI training costs are falling by 75% annually, and inference costs are falling by 85%-95% annually, which will trigger a wave of "good deflation." Trueflation's core inflation rate has dropped to 1.3%, suggesting the Federal Reserve will likely be forced to pivot to easing, acting as a catalyst for the next wave in digital assets. Additionally, she revealed that ARK's crypto research team has reduced quarterly report production time by 75% using Claude Co-work and argued that the payment layer for Agentic AI will inevitably be built on blockchain.

Key Quotes

Bitcoin Pricing and Cycle Judgment

• "Our base case is Bitcoin reaching $730,000 by 2030, and a bull case of $1.5 million."
• "A 50% decline is not a bear market. Compared to the 85% and 95% drops before, this is nothing."
• "Our on-chain analyst David Puell says the absolute bottom is between $50,000 and $55,000. But I doubt we'll get there."
• "The correlation coefficient between gold and Bitcoin is only 0.14. In the past two cycles, gold moved before Bitcoin, and it's the same this time."

Stablecoins and DeFi Evolution

• "CZ and I both agree that the biggest surprise from Bitcoin's early days to now has been the rise of stablecoins."
• "Ironically, the delay of the CLARITY Act has given Tether and Circle more time to enjoy their network effects."
• "We originally thought Bitcoin would play the role stablecoins are playing now, especially in emerging markets. But stablecoins became the bridge from traditional finance to DeFi."

Institutional Adoption Tipping Point

• "Larry Fink's transformation is complete. He finally understood that the internet never had a financial layer, and tokenization can fill that gap. His pivot gave permission to the entire industry. If he says it's important, I'd better go learn about it too."
• "We were ridiculed when we first bought Bitcoin in 2015. Many thought it was just a marketing gimmick. That collective mockery actually made me more confident we were on the right track."

Macro and Deflation Logic

• "The Federal Funds rate has already been cut by 175 basis points, but the market narrative is still that the Fed is too hawkish."
• "AI training costs are falling 75% annually, and inference costs are falling 85% to 95% annually. We are going to see a massive wave of benign deflation."

Convergence of Agentic AI and Blockchain

• "In the future, we'll have a bunch of chatbots working for us. We'll need to pay Claude, pay the bots providing data. This is all machine-to-machine, and the blockchain payment system is the only sensible infrastructure."
• "Our crypto team uses Claude Co-work for quarterly reports, cutting production time by 75%. The time saved is all released for deeper research."

ARK's Five Innovation Platforms Theory

Robbie: You have five innovation platforms, spawning 15 technologies, which are now converging. Before we dive deep into digital assets and public chains, can you give us a macro view? How do you see the topic of disruptive innovation?

Cathie Wood: The seeds of everything happening today were planted early in my career. I watched them being planted in the 80s and 90s. But cloud computing didn't really emerge until AWS launched in 2006. Back then, I was trying to explain to investors and advisors what cloud computing was; it was pure fantasy to them. The big AI breakthrough came with deep learning in 2012 and the Transformer architecture in 2017, which later led to ChatGPT and natural language programming.

The situation in the late 90s was too much capital chasing too few opportunities, timing was too early. But today, it's completely reversed. All five innovation platforms and 15 technologies are ready, yet investors are filled with fear. As a fund manager, I prefer operating in this environment over the crazy bubble era back then.

Valuations today are much lower than during the bubble. The technology is ready, and most importantly, costs are falling at an astonishing rate, meaning these technologies can reach more industries and individuals.

I founded ARK in 2014 because, after the internet bubble burst and the 2008 financial crisis, institutional investors became extremely risk-averse. The whole industry shifted towards passive investing, fueling the ETF boom. Even in active management, fund managers rely heavily on benchmark indices to screen targets. But we don't do that; our screening criteria is original research.

Traditional finance research teams are organized by industry, like five consumer analysts, five healthcare analysts, etc. But we believe to correctly grasp innovation, the research team must be organized around those 15 technologies, because these technologies cut across all industries.

Robbie: Why are investors so scared? Is it because they haven't figured out the organizational structure to understand these technological convergences?

Cathie Wood: This convergence is indeed confusing. Tesla is the best example. Most research directors assigned Tesla to an auto analyst, but it should at least be given to a tech analyst. More accurately, it should be analyzed collaboratively by three people: a robotics analyst, an energy storage analyst, and an AI analyst. Handing it to experts in internal combustion engines and human-driven cars is the wrong direction. We are transitioning from the old world to electrification and autonomous driving.

AI is developing so fast, impacting so many industries simultaneously. That in itself is a shocking experience. Research directors need time to figure out how to reorganize. They need to allocate people by technological direction and build a collaborative culture. In traditional institutions, if a stock is assigned to an auto analyst, no one else can touch it. This model must change because technologies are converging, and analysts must collaborate to understand the potential of these companies.

Logic of Crypto Asset Allocation

Robbie: We also see a lot of tribalism in the crypto industry. The story of digital assets obviously started with Bitcoin. When you founded ARK in 2014, Bitcoin was still finding its footing. How did you view Bitcoin back then? Was it already suitable for institutional allocation?

Cathie Wood: Not yet, back then. Actually, I started following and discussing Bitcoin at my previous company, purely out of curiosity. I brought my most Bitcoin-obsessed analyst to ARK, who is now our Chief Futurist, Brett Winton.

When I founded ARK in 2014, we had only four innovation platforms, merging AI and blockchain into a category called "Next Generation Internet." That's also the origin of our fund's name, ARK. AI had just had its deep learning breakthrough, it was very new. Blockchain excited us more, but we weren't sure it deserved its own platform yet.

In 2015, we collaborated with Art Laffer (creator of the Laffer Curve, a monetary economist mentored by Nobel laureate Robert Mundell) to publish our first white paper on Bitcoin. The core question was: Can Bitcoin fulfill the three functions of money – medium of exchange, store of value, unit of account?

Art told me something back then: "This is what I've been waiting for since the US closed the gold window in 1971." I asked him how big this idea could be, and he replied: "How big is the US monetary base?" At the time, it was $4.5 trillion, while Bitcoin's network value was only $6 billion. He was talking about trillions. I made a personal investment right then.

To find the best exposure for our clients, we needed permission from the NYSE and the SEC. We eventually found GBTC. Bitcoin was at $250 at the time. In the summer of 2015, when Greece threatened to leave the EU, we built our first position because we noticed that Bitcoin would rally on such geopolitical news. It can act as both a risk-on asset and a safe-haven asset, playing different roles at different times.

Robbie: Looking back at that era, the dominant narrative was "Institutions are coming to buy our Bitcoin." Now it's 2026, and we've indeed seen ETFs, stablecoin adoption, tokenized assets, the explosion of permissioned chains, and major institutions launching real products. The convergence of traditional institutional adoption and crypto-native culture and infrastructure – this is the biggest convergence in the digital asset space.

But one interesting phenomenon is: crypto natives, the ones who should have the most conviction, are now permeated with apathy and internal disappointment. Meanwhile, the new large institutions and big companies entering are more bullish. How do you interpret this state?

Cathie Wood: Several things are happening simultaneously. When we bought Bitcoin in 2015, we were truly ridiculed. Many thought it was a marketing gimmick. When that many people laugh at you or dismiss you, it actually makes me more interested.

The landscape now is like this: Bitcoin owns the global monetary system track. In DeFi, Ethereum and Solana are dominant, and Hyperliquid is also shaping up.

Regarding institutional adoption, I believe Larry Fink's transformation is the key turning point. He was once the leading voice against Bitcoin, but his pivot was extremely thorough. It stemmed from a vision: the tokenization of everything. He finally understood that the internet was built without a financial layer because no one back then thought of e-commerce and online investing. It was just information exchange initially, and some even thought it was only for gambling and illegal activities.

Fink's awakening gave permission to the entire industry. Before, we had to fight against him and Jamie Dimon. But after Fink's pivot, the industry's reaction was: if he says this is important, we need to learn it too. Moreover, BlackRock has Aladdin. If Fink says tokenization is important, then all asset management companies using Aladdin must follow suit.

Another crucial development for DeFi is the evolution of stablecoins. I just did a podcast with CZ yesterday. We both agreed that the biggest surprise from Bitcoin's early days to now has been the rise of fiat-backed stablecoins. This was quite heretical in the early crypto ecosystem. But now, even Bitcoin OGs are fully supporting it. Giancarlo and Paolo from Tether were among the earliest OGs.

Stablecoins became the bridge from traditional finance to DeFi. We originally thought Bitcoin would play this role, especially in emerging markets. But even in emerging markets, the Bitcoin community sees stablecoins as a humanitarian "stepping stone" into the crypto world because most residents in emerging markets cannot handle Bitcoin's volatility; they live on daily income. As their wealth grows, they will naturally move from stablecoins to more investment options within the crypto ecosystem.

There's also a big question: will stablecoins be winner-takes-all? Network effects suggest yes. Ironically, the delay of the CLARITY Act has given Tether and Circle more time to accumulate network effects. CZ thinks there will be an explosion of stablecoins, and our team's Lorenzo, David, and Ray think so too. But whether there's an explosion or not, the consensus is that it will eventually consolidate to a few winners.

Why Tokenization is the Core Narrative

Robbie: We've been discussing on the show that the tokenization wave starts with non-speculative assets, then moves along the risk curve to treasuries, and now we're discussing tokenized stocks. In your Big Ideas 2026 report, you wrote that the global tokenized asset market could surpass $11 trillion by 2030. My question is: as these assets come on-chain, will they eventually end up in DeFi protocols? Where do you think the value primarily accumulates?

Cathie Wood: We tend to agree with your view. In innovation, a typical divergence occurs: pure-play new entrants move faster, are more agile and creative; traditional players embrace new technology to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and productivity. Among the traditional camp, the most aggressive and visionary companies use it to consolidate traditional markets.

The best example is Walmart and Amazon. During the internet bubble, everyone thought traditional retail would be destroyed. Indeed, many specialty stores were eliminated, but Walmart used the internet to build its online business and consolidate the traditional retail space. Amazon is a fast-growing giant, but both coexist. Now, Walmart is actually more aggressive in drone delivery than Amazon because it has better relationships with partner companies and regulators. Amazon was several generations of drone technology ahead of Walmart but made some regulatory mistakes, slowing it down.

The same logic applies to the crypto world. Traditional players are embracing the technology. JP Morgan is particularly interesting. Jamie Dimon remains the biggest Bitcoin critic in many ways, but he lets the technology team and client demand override his personal judgment.

On the DeFi pure-play side, we are betting on Ethereum, Solana, and Hyperliquid. We bought some DATs for our ETFs, including Bitmine Immersion and Soulmate in the Solana ecosystem. We know too many DATs have been created, and there will inevitably be massive shakeouts. We publish our trades daily, and you can see we are gradually adding back positions while pivoting to pure exposure to Ethereum and Solana within our limits. Some platform providers don't allow our flagship fund to hold Bitcoin ETFs or Ethereum/Solana ETFs, so we have to operate within those constraints.

DeFi will see explosive growth. The distribution of economic value between Layer 1 and Layer 2 is still being contested, and we are watching closely. But we remain bullish on the "Big Four," and now with WBTC being able to migrate to other platforms, Bitcoin is also in the mix.

"Benign Deflation" and the Current Macro Liquidity Situation

Robbie: People will say, we heard Cathie is bullish long-term. But we are in the midst of geopolitical turmoil. Stocks hit new highs yesterday, but Bitcoin is still hovering around $75,000. Raoul Pal tweeted that global liquidity is rising. How do you view crypto's lag relative to stocks and commodities? What's your macro liquidity outlook?

Cathie Wood: I wrote a letter earlier this year with an asset class correlation matrix. Many people assume Bitcoin is highly correlated with gold because we call it "digital gold," but it's not. From 2019 (when institutional interest started noticeably heating up) until now, the correlation coefficient between gold and Bitcoin is only 0.14. But looking at the past two cycles, gold moved