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Crypto expert weighs in on Cathie Wood’s $1 million bitcoin call

CoinDesk Managing Director of Global Content Emily Parker sits down with Yahoo Finance Live to discuss ARK ETF creator Cathie Wood's predictions on bitcoin's price evaluation, bitcoin's uses, and Robinhood's addition of other cryptocurrencies and meme coins.

Video transcript

BRAD SMITH: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live, everyone. ARK Invest founder CEO and CIO Cathie Wood spoke with Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman. And Wood shared why she believed Bitcoin could reach $1 million citing the mathematical metering which stops at 21 million units. Here's a piece of that conversation.

CATHIE WOOD: This is the first-- each word I'm about to say is really important. The first global, global, big idea, private, meaning not overseen by any government, digital, rules-based monetary system. It is a big idea.

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BRAD SMITH: And for more, let's bring in Emily Parker, who is the executive director of global content over at CoinDesk. Emily, always a pleasure to speak with you and get some of your insights around the space. So somewhere between 2026 and 2030 was the calculation from Ms. Wood. Is the calculus for this time frame correlated to the halving process? That's the best thing that I could wrap my head around at least.

EMILY PARKER: Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely not in the business of making price predictions. But the way that she characterized Bitcoin is accurate. I mean, it is a huge idea. It is-- there's really nothing like it. It is truly global. I mean, I think that's something we forget about sometimes in the US, just how Bitcoin has spread all over the world and has communities all over the world. It is not controlled by any government. And it's lasted this long. So I don't know. I think the one thing I will say about Bitcoin's price is that it has defied predictions for a decade now. So I kind of feel like anything can happen.

BRAD SMITH: Something that you and I have discussed in the past is the level of institutional investment that it would take to make this move happen. Do you see that between 2026 and 2030 being something that accelerates?

EMILY PARKER: For sure. I mean, if we look at just the trends up until now and how much institutional investment we saw just in 2021 for example, I think it's totally fair to imagine that we could see institutional investment accelerate at a very rapid clip.

BRAD SMITH: It's interesting, because it would also have this necessary annexation of how people look at Bitcoin. Is it a store of value versus being a transactionary tool and utilized in that measure, and where we ultimately come down on that conversation to drive it to a million dollars per coin?

EMILY PARKER: Sure. I mean, that's exactly it. So there's like-- right. There's two parts of it. One is Bitcoin actually being used as a means of payment, which it's not really being used at any huge scale right now for various reasons. A, because it's so volatile, and B, because it's just not that convenient. I mean, a lot of places have tried to initiate Bitcoin as a means of payment. And people find that other means of payment are easier. So there's that. Then there's a store of value question, which you just mentioned.

Now I think in the US, Bitcoin is sort of up to a once in a lifetime test, which as we've seen, inflation hit a four year high. I mean, this is real. I mean, Americans, a lot of younger Americans, are really experiencing inflation for the first time. And that's so much of Bitcoin's value proposition. It's, here is a store of value that will protect your savings from inflation. That's so much of what Bitcoin is supposed to be about. So I think that test is happening right now.

BRAD SMITH: So let's talk about what is being transacted with, or at least is being utilized even more so. And that's some of the coins, the other coins, that have been listed. And we've seen even more listings of new tokens and coins. Coinbase released a list of 50 new tokens that it's considering. We also know that Robinhood has now added Shib, or the Shiba Inu. And so with all of this in mind, what should we make of some of these new altcoins that are making their way onto these platforms with millions of active users?

EMILY PARKER: Sure. So it sort of just goes back to the earlier point about, it's just there's no point in making predictions in this space because they're so easily defied. So I think Robinhood and Shiba Inu is such a good example. I mean, so many people underestimated Shiba Inu. And obviously, we don't know where this token will go. And I'm not advocating for it in any particular way. But I think a lot of people just wrote it off as a joke. But there is a real community there. I mean, there are a lot of people that support this, even if you look at, for example, the official Shiba Inu Twitter feed. They have something like three million followers.

And they've been sort of campaigning to get onto Robinhood. And this is really a big victory for them. And I think, for example, people wrote off Dogecoin as a joke. And now it's really it has a very high market cap. And then you bring in another dog themed coin. That now is kind of demanding some degree of respect. So I think it's a really interesting move by Robinhood. And we'll see what happens in that space.

BRAD SMITH: And just for cadence here, I suppose, what is the typical process next in really giving some viability to these altcoins? Is it just making sure that they can be transacted, that there are retailers, that there are platforms that are willing to transact with them?

EMILY PARKER: Yeah. So I think Dogecoin has done a decent job of actually having Doge being used as a means of payment in various places. But yes, I think there's that. Can people actually pay with this? I think-- and then who knows? Maybe we'll start seeing institutional investment in Shiba Inu. I mean, again, anything can happen. I mean, we've seen crazier things in this space. So there are a lot of now new thresholds to reach.

BRAD SMITH: Emily Parker, executive director of global content at CoinDesk. As always, thanks for giving us the latest and greatest around this industry that continues to defy some of our own expectations. Emily, appreciate the time as always.