Podcast: The Rollup

Compilation & Organization: Yuliya, PANews

Market volatility and low sentiment, is disruptive innovation being collectively "misjudged"? Cathie Wood, founder and CEO/CIO of ARK Invest, pointed out in the latest podcast: the current market pricing of innovative assets may be "unprecedentedly inefficient," with valuations far below those during the internet bubble, and the real long-term opportunities are being overshadowed by investor fear.

In this episode, Cathie Wood reviewed ARK's early experience of allocating Bitcoin since 2015, narrating how Bitcoin transformed from a ridiculed fringe asset into one suitable for institutional allocation; at the same time, she deeply analyzed the rise of stablecoins, the changing attitudes of BlackRock founder Larry Fink, the entry of traditional finance, the prospects of DeFi and RWA tokenization, and looked ahead to the deep integration of blockchain with AI, machine payments, medical research and development, and other fields.

PANews has summarized this dialogue in text format.

I. Integration of Five Major Platforms and Fifteen Key Technologies

Host (Robbie/Andy): You have mentioned five major innovative platforms that have given rise to fifteen technologies, which are now integrating. Before we delve into digital assets and public chains, can you first broadly describe how you view disruptive innovation?

Cathie Wood: Of course. Everything happening today was seeded back in the early years of my career, in the 1980s and 1990s. The tech and telecom bubble of the late 1990s occurred simply because investors blindly poured money into anything related to .com or the internet. Unfortunately, the technology at that time wasn’t ready, and the costs were too high.

I still remember when AWS emerged in 2006, I was trying to explain cloud computing to investors and advisors. For them, that was a very unfamiliar concept.

The real breakthroughs in AI also took many years:

• 2012, breakthrough in deep learning;

• 2017, emergence of the Transformer architecture, which effectively brought us to ChatGPT and natural language programming.

So, the issue back in those years was: too much capital chasing too few opportunities too early.

We experienced a bubble burst. And today’s situation is quite the opposite. Now, the five major innovative platforms have reached a stage where they can truly scale, involving fifteen different technologies, and these technologies are integrating. However, investors are quite fearful.

As a fund manager, I prefer to work in today’s environment rather than during the tech and telecom bubble. It was just too crazy then.

Many might find it hard to believe, but I think today’s valuations are much lower than during the bubble era. More importantly, the technologies are ready, and costs are decreasing at an astonishing rate. This means these technologies will be used by more and more industries and individuals.

Host: Is this also the reason you founded ARK in 2014?

Cathie Wood: Yes. I founded ARK in 2014 because after the tech and telecom bubble burst, especially after the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, institutional investors became extremely risk-averse. The risk aversion in the retail world was not as pronounced, but on the institutional side, it was very evident.

At the same time, I observed that the entire asset management industry began moving toward passive strategies, which also fueled the boom of ETFs. Even in the actively managed space, fund managers were increasingly reliant on benchmark indices. They would often use benchmarks as guides when screening investment ideas.

We do not operate this way. Our screening of investment ideas is based on our research, especially original research.

Hence, we focus on:

• Five major innovative platforms;

• Fifteen key technologies;

• And the integration of these technologies.

I believe the research framework itself needs to be reorganized. The traditional finance industry's research is typically categorized by industry, sector, and sub-industry.

Many companies will have five consumer analysts, five healthcare analysts. But we believe that to correctly and efficiently grasp innovation, research teams must be organized around those fifteen technologies.

The reason is simple: these technologies will cut across industry boundaries and span different sectors. You must start from the technology itself, rather than confining responsibilities to industry silos.

Host: Why are investors so fearful? Is it because they do not clearly understand this organizational structure and cannot fully comprehend technological integration?

Cathie Wood: I think technological integration is indeed confusing. Tesla is a great example. Most research heads assign Tesla to automotive analysts. But it should at least be assigned to technology analysts. More accurately, it should be collaboratively researched by analysts from three technological directions:

• Robotics analysts;

• Energy storage analysts;

• AI analysts.

But in reality, Tesla is handed over to experts in internal combustion and human-driven cars. Yet we are moving away from that world towards electrification and autonomous driving. This is one source of the confusion.

AI is developing rapidly and impacting many industries, which creates a kind of shock experience. Research heads need time to think: how should I properly organize my team to understand what is happening?

They need to organize research by technology, and they also need a highly collaborative environment. But in the world of institutional investing, at least at the places I have worked, if an automotive analyst is responsible for a stock, others should not touch it.

This world needs to change. Because these technologies are integrating, analysts must work together to understand the potential behind those stocks.

II. Early Exploration of Bitcoin

Host: The story of digital assets clearly begins with Bitcoin. You founded ARK in 2014, when Bitcoin existed but was still looking for its footing. How did you initially view it? Was it already suitable for institutional allocation at that time?

Cathie Wood: Not at that time. In fact, at my previous company, we had already begun to focus on and discuss Bitcoin. I brought the chief analyst who was most interested in cryptocurrencies at that time to ARK, and he is now our Chief Futurist, Brett Winton.

When ARK was founded in 2014, we only had four innovative platforms; we merged AI and blockchain technology into the "next generation internet" (which is also the name of our ARKW fund now). AI received more attention at that time due to breakthroughs in deep learning but was still young; we were intrigued by blockchain technology but did not know if it was worth pursuing as a standalone direction, surprising people with it could result in blank stares.

But we were very interested. In 2015, we collaborated with Art Laffer to write our first whitepaper on Bitcoin. We posed a question: Can Bitcoin fulfill the three major functions of currency (medium of exchange, value storage, unit of account)? Art Laffer is not only famous for the Laffer curve in fiscal policy, but he is also an economist who studied under Nobel laureate Robert Mundell.

From an economic perspective, he gave us tremendous help. He told me at that time: "This is what I have been waiting for since the U.S. closed the gold window in 1971." I asked him how big he thought this idea could be. He countered with the question of how large the U.S. monetary base was, which at that time was $4.5 trillion (now over $6 trillion). At that time, Bitcoin's "network value" (market cap) was only $6 billion. Just think, $6 billion compared to trillions.

So I personally invested immediately.

Host: How did ARK gain exposure to Bitcoin for its clients at that time?

Cathie Wood: We began looking for the best way to get exposure for our clients, but we needed to apply for permission. We had to go through:

• The New York Stock Exchange;

• The SEC;

• And some regulatory obstacles or bottlenecks.

Eventually, we found GBTC.

At that time, Bitcoin's price was $250. We built our position in the summer of 2015, when Greece was threatening to exit the EU; we noticed that whenever there was such a headline, Bitcoin would rise. It behaved like a disaster hedge tool. We realized it could be both a risk asset (Risk-on) and a hedge asset (Risk-off).

III. The Rise of Tokenization, Stablecoins, and the Future of DeFi

Host: Now we are in 2026, and we see the adoption of ETFs, stablecoins, tokenized assets, large institutions launching products, and stablecoins. How do you view the current state of institutional adoption? Why is there so much apathy and disappointment within the crypto-native community, while new large institutions are more optimistic?

Cathie Wood: Several things are happening now. When we first built our position in 2015, we faced a lot of ridicule, and many thought it was just a marketing gimmick. But it was this widespread ridicule and disdain that convinced me we might have discovered a huge opportunity.

Now we have a global monetary system, with Bitcoin occupying that space; the DeFi space is dominated by Ethereum and Solana, with Hyperliquid also bringing some challenges.

As for institutional interest, I think we need BlackRock CEO Larry Fink to change his mind. He was once the leader of the world's largest asset management company and openly belittled Bitcoin. But he has since had a significant transformation, stemming from his imagination of the "tokenization of everything" vision.

He finally understood that the internet did not have a financial layer when it was established because no one had imagined that commerce and investment would occur on it. He opened his eyes to the future of tokenization, which is crucial for institutional investors and product development experts. I credit him for this. Once he changed his attitude, it gave the whole industry permission: "If he thinks it's important, then I might miss out on a great opportunity if I don’t get on board." Plus, BlackRock has a large asset management technology platform called Aladdin, and his attitude shift has profound implications.

Host: What role have stablecoins played in this?

Cathie Wood: I believe that the evolution of stablecoins is crucial for DeFi. From the early days of Bitcoin to now, what has surprised me the most is the development of stablecoins backed by fiat currencies.

In the early crypto ecosystem, this was quite contrary to the spirit of the time. But now you will see that even Bitcoin OGs fully support stablecoins.

For instance, Tether's Giancarlo and Paolo are clearly strong proponents of stablecoins. And from the OG perspective, they are also among the earliest supporters.

I think they brought the world into the concept of stablecoins. Stablecoins serve as a bridge from traditional finance into DeFi.

An important point is that we initially thought Bitcoin would take on the role that stablecoins are currently fulfilling, especially in emerging markets.

But even in emerging markets, the Bitcoin community now sees stablecoins as a humanitarian stepping stone for people entering the crypto world.

Why do we say humanitarian?

Because most people in emerging markets cannot bear the daily volatility of Bitcoin and other crypto assets. Their lives are more akin to living paycheck to paycheck. As wealth grows, we also agree that they will transition from stablecoins to more investments in the crypto ecosystem.

Thus, stablecoins represent another major unexpected development and have already become a glide path for DeFi.

Host: Will the stablecoin market be a winner-takes-all situation?

Cathie Wood: This is a big question. We have discussed it with CZ as well. The network effects suggest the answer is likely yes.

I believe the delays of the GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act have given Tether and Circle, namely USDT and USDC, more time to enjoy the network effects. It’s somewhat ironic. Regulation was supposed to stimulate more stablecoin emergence, but the regulatory delays have instead allowed existing stablecoins to gain stronger network effects than they otherwise would have.

CZ believes that stablecoins will surge, and our team (Lorenzo, David, Ray) agrees. But whether or not they surge, everyone believes that consolidation will eventually happen, and based on network effects, only a few winners will remain.

Host: You mentioned that by 2030, the global tokenized asset market could surpass $11 trillion. As more and more assets get on-chain and enter DeFi protocols, do you agree with this view? Where do you think the most value will flow in DeFi applications and networks?

Cathie Wood: We tend to agree with your viewpoint. In the world of innovation, two types of participants usually emerge.

• The first type is purely emerging players. They act faster, are more creative, and are more agile.

• The second type consists of traditional players. They will first embrace new technologies to lower costs, enhance efficiency, and improve productivity.

In the traditional world, those companies that actively and thoughtfully adopt new technologies will ultimately integrate the traditional industry.

When Amazon emerged, it was during the internet bubble, and the prevailing view was: oh my, traditional retail will be destroyed. Of course, many boutique stores were indeed replaced and disintermediated by the internet.

Walmart utilized the internet to establish an online business (acquiring Jet), which then rapidly expanded, capturing market share from many small traditional retailers, thereby integrating the traditional sector.

Meanwhile, Amazon, as a giant, was also experiencing rapid growth, and both coexisted. Now Walmart is actively venturing into drone delivery, making progress by closely collaborating with regulators, whereas Amazon has fallen behind due to some missteps in this area.

Host: Will a similar pattern emerge in the crypto world?

Cathie Wood: In the crypto world, we will also see traditional players embrace this technology. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, was once a vocal opponent of Bitcoin. But now he allows his tech team and customer needs to override his personal biases.

Regarding DeFi construction, I believe pure crypto projects will enjoy network effects, such as Ethereum, Solana, and Hyperliquid. We will place our bets on them. We have already purchased some digital asset trusts (DATs) for our ETFs, like Bitwise and Solana-related products. We know that too many DATs have been created in the market, leading to significant eliminations, so we have been careful in re-entering or pivoting to pure exposures in Ethereum and Solana when platforms allow.

Some platform providers do not want us to hold Bitcoin ETFs in flagship funds, nor Ether or Solana ETFs. So we must align with the requests of platform providers. You will see us gaining exposure through other means.

The questions regarding the economic value and value capture of L1 and L2 are still under discussion, and we are keeping a close watch on them. Despite this, we still believe several core networks are essential. If we include Bitcoin, especially as we see wrapped Bitcoin and its migration to other platforms, I think it can be summarized as "the four": Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and Hyperliquid.

Host: If by 2030 there is indeed $11 trillion worth of assets on-chain, our mental model for blockchain and DeFi applications will need to change. They will not just handle crypto assets, but will also support stocks, funds, and other off-chain assets, becoming the backbone of the real economy rather than just the crypto economy.

Cathie Wood: Yes, I want to add one more point. Art Laffer once told me that if traditional finance does not enter and "disrupt" the so-called purity of the crypto community, you might not see such strong developments as we are on the verge of experiencing. He was very excited when he heard we were launching a Bitcoin spot ETF, saying that if this new world is to truly take off and ultimately dominate, it is absolutely necessary.

IV. Macroeconomic Liquidity, Bitcoin Cycles, and "Digital Gold" Positioning

Host: We are in a state of geopolitical turmoil, stock markets are hitting new highs, and Bitcoin fluctuates around $75K. Global liquidity and M2 are both rising. What is your view on the current macro liquidity dynamics? AI and the upcoming IPOs have attracted a lot of attention; has this led to a lag in the crypto market?

Cathie Wood: In a letter earlier this year, I analyzed the correlations between asset classes. Many believe Bitcoin is digital gold, so it must be highly correlated with gold. But that is not the case. From 2019 (when institutional interest began to rise) until now, the correlation between gold and Bitcoin has only been 0.14.

However, in the past two cycles, gold rebounded before Bitcoin did. We believe the same is happening now. While Bitcoin has recently declined relative to gold, the long-term trend line shows that the bottom is continuously rising. Thus, we believe Bitcoin's bull market remains intact. Although we have gone through what is called a bear market, a 50% decline this time is actually a win compared to the 85% or 95% declines of the past.

Host: So you still believe Bitcoin will hit new highs?

Cathie Wood: We believe Bitcoin will reach an all-time high in this cycle. Our base assumption is $730,000 by 2030, and our bull market assumption is $1.5 million. I have been criticized for saying stablecoins have usurped part of Bitcoin's role, but people overlooked that gold was rebounding at that time, which means Bitcoin’s role as a store of value is also enhancing.

In fact, the two are offsetting each other. The stronger impact comes from gold's performance relative to Bitcoin's effect on Bitcoin's price.

Therefore, we think we are in a bottoming process.

David Puell is responsible for our on-chain analysis. He believes that if absolute capitulation occurs, the price may reach a "last defense" range of $50,000 to $55,000.

However, I am skeptical about this because observing the current performance of Bitcoin and other assets, it does not necessarily mean it will decline to that level.

Host: How do you view the Federal Reserve and inflation?

Cathie Wood: There is a lot of talk about the Fed being too hawkish. But in reality, the federal funds rate has decreased by 175 basis points. I think inflation will be significantly lower than expected. For example, Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, announced a price reduction of 15% about three months ago, and today they reported sales greatly exceeding expectations. In a low inflation world, price reductions will lead to strong unit sales growth.

The tech world, in particular, is seeing massive deflation. AI training costs are decreasing by 75% per year, and AI inference costs (like the cost of ChatGPT answering questions) are decreasing by 85% to 95% per year. This will bring about a wave of significant "benign deflation."

What we call "benign deflation" is where price reductions lead to strong unit growth. This is also why we expect real GDP growth to accelerate. When the Fed sees inflation declining, we believe it will cut rates.

Host: What inflation indicators do you pay attention to?

Cathie Wood: I don't know if you are following Truflation, which is an indicator measuring consumer price inflation based on blockchain, measuring thousands of goods in real time.

Even if gasoline prices have shown the recent trend, Truflation's inflation rate is only 1.8%. At one point, it was below 1%.

The core inflation indicator is only 1.3%.

Over the past two and a half to three years, by various measures, including Truflation, inflation has been tugging between 2% and 3%.

But Truflation indicates that this inflation will resolve downward. If that occurs, we believe the Fed will loosen.

There’s another reason related to the unemployment rate. While the overall unemployment rate is low, when you break it down, you’ll find entry-level jobs are being impacted.

Companies are not engaging in large-scale layoffs but are not hiring much either.

Consequently, the youth unemployment rate, which is for individuals aged 16 to 24, is now 8.5%. It once reached 11% but is now at 8.5%.

This indicates a slack in the employment system and is pulling down wage growth.

It’s interesting. If you look at any wage indicator, you will see wage growth is slowing down while productivity is accelerating. Then why would the Fed loosen?

Because the demand for money relative to supply is increasing, which relates to unit growth. The role of the Fed is to balance or adapt to real economic growth.

V. Four-Year Cycle, ETF Holders, and the October 10 Flash Crash

Host: A new Fed chair is about to take office. Recently, some have noticed that his investment portfolio includes some crypto funds, and the market is excited about this. Overall, do you think the Fed will recognize "benign deflation" and support the market through rate cuts or quantitative easing? How might this impact digital assets? How fast might it happen? Do you believe the Bitcoin four-year cycle is still at play, or that the Fed's dovish stance will drive asset prices up sooner?

Cathie Wood: I think observing Bitcoin ETFs is quite enlightening. We need to see how steadfast these ETF holders are. During this downturn, they have shown remarkable determination.

If you are an institution, and you begin to learn about this new asset class, hearing about the four-year cycle, then seeing Bitcoin drop 50%, as a traditional asset manager, you might think this is a serious bear market. But some institutions see it as an opportunity and begin to lower their costs. Although some investors have chosen to exit the market, more institutions are progressively understanding this new asset class and entering the market.

There is no clear conclusion yet on whether Bitcoin has entered the four-year cycle. The October 10 flash crash prompted an automatic deleveraging phenomenon in the market, which investors familiar with the DeFi ecosystem are not strangers to. As a fund manager, I noticed the auto-deleveraging that happened on the Binance platform, and this phenomenon was not caused by Binance; I later publicly explained this.

Additionally, the tariff turmoil at that time triggered further market volatility, while a software glitch on Binance led to a series of auto-deleveragings. Some investors thought they had hedged their risks but discovered after operating on two exchanges that they had not actually hedged, resulting in severe losses for them. The scale of the unwinding may have reached $28 billion or $30 billion. But we believe the unwinding has ended.

Therefore, the market is currently in a bottoming phase, with multiple factors overlapping to influence future trends:

• The washout has passed;

• Institutional support is present;

• Perhaps the four-year cycle is still ongoing;

• Maybe because institutions are learning, we are accelerating the four-year cycle.

But I believe that as liquidity increases, the market will experience another major explosion.

Host: You also mentioned a more economic point: the velocity of money.

Cathie Wood: We see that the money growth rate is rising and is currently at 4.9%. Nominal GDP is about 5%, so the money growth is essentially adapting to nominal GDP.

War can slow down the velocity of money. The velocity of money refers to how fast money circulates. If it rises, it amplifies the impact of that 4.9% on economic activity. If it falls, it creates a drag.

Thus, this might also cause some turbulence and changes in velocity. We need to monitor this in the coming months.

VI. The Fusion of Blockchain with AI, Commerce, and Healthcare

Host: How do you view the fusion of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, DeFi protocols with broader disruptive technologies like AI or healthcare?

Cathie Wood: You may have heard the term "Agentic AI." In the future, we will have many chatbots working for us. Our crypto team is a good example; they utilize Claude to assist in writing reports. Our quarterly Bitcoin report and DeFi quarterly report, through the use of AI, have reduced the time spent writing these lengthy reports full of graphs by 75%. This has released immense productivity for more in-depth research.

Thinking along the lines of Agentic AI, at some point, they will let the robots complete these reports on their own.

At that time, we will need payment systems.

We must pay Claude or pay the company providing the data. All of this will be machine-to-machine payments.

What could be more suitable than an internet financial system (blockchain) to meet this demand? If we are to unlock these productivity gains, we must eliminate intermediaries from traditional finance.

Host: Will agentic commerce require a blockchain payment ecosystem as well?

Cathie Wood: Yes, absolutely. I hate shopping, and in the future, I will have a private shopping robot that understands my style, which could even be trained by my current personal shopper, Lillian. I won't have to step into a store anymore. But an agentic payment ecosystem will be essential, and we believe they will be based on blockchain.

Host: What about in healthcare?

Cathie Wood: We see the rise of "self-driving labs" in drug discovery and clinical trials. These labs have no human involvement and are driven by DeFi, blockchain technology, and peer-to-peer networks to conduct experiments. So yes, agentic AI supported by blockchain-based payment ecosystems will take over in the future.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。