A long-time crypto optimist is questioning another's bullish long-term call on bitcoin prices amid the latest plunge in prices for digital currencies.
"I think that is pretty lofty," Valkyrie CEO Leah Wald said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above) when asked about Cathie Wood's Ark Invest calling for bitcoin prices to reach $1 million by 2030 in its January 2022 "Big Ideas" report.
"Bitcoin’s market capitalization still represents a fraction of global assets and is likely to scale as nation-states adopt as legal tender," Ark stated, listing several factors for its aggressive projection: (1) maturing bitcoin investor base focused on the long-term; (2) bitcoin taking market share as a global settlement network; and (3) institutional investors are being attracted to the space.
The $1,000,000 target is a rallying cry of sorts for the bitcoin faithful, especially during bouts of turbulence in the benchmark crypto — as is currently the case.
Ark has put its money where its research is by buying shares of Coinbase in 2022. Unfortunately for Ark, the bet on both Coinbase and bitcoin presently looks rather ill-timed.
Bitcoin prices fell below $22,000 this week in a broader flight to safety in markets. The total value of the crypto market has plummeted to below $1 trillion, from roughly $3 trillion in late 2021.
Crypto-centric stocks such as the aforementioned Coinbase and Microstrategy continue to be hammered.
Coinbase, which is owned in by Wood's flagship Ark Innovation ETF, recently froze hiring and announced the the crypto trading platform would layoff 18% of its workforce.
"I think we will have to see if we hit that $1 million mark or continue going down for the next many, many years," Wald added. "But at the end of the day, one bitcoin is still equal to one bitcoin so trade accordingly and hedge appropriately."
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
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