The CEO of ARK Invest claims that since spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were introduced, investors have begun to switch from gold to Bitcoin.

“Relative to gold, Bitcoin has been rising. There’s now a substitution into Bitcoin and we think that is going to continue now that there is a less friction-filled way to access Bitcoin,” said ARK Invest’s Cathie Woods in a conversation with chief futurist Brett Winton on the company's YouTube channel.

Wood anticipates that Bitcoin, like gold, will demonstrate its worth as a "risk off asset" in the event that the banking industry falters.

According to the CEO of ARK Invest, the market witnessed this firsthand in March 2023 when there was a "regional bank crisis" in the US, which caused the price of Bitcoin to soar by 40%.

“The Regional Bank index was imploding and here again, the Regional Bank index is acting up,” she said, adding:

“This idea that it’s a flight to quality or a flight to safety is reasserting itself here.”

According to a recent analysis by Fidelity, even though interest rates are rising globally, Bitcoin's correlation with gold increased in 2023 and broke from its previous inverse relationship with rates.

As of right now, Longtermtrends reports that the one-year rolling correlation between Bitcoin and gold is at 0.80, the highest level recorded.

Wood stated that she wasn't shocked by the price correction, which saw Bitcoin drop 20% from $48,500 just hours after launch to $38,740 on January 24, according to CoinGecko, in relation to the spot Bitcoin ETF launch.

Wood had predicted before the launch that there would be a "sell on the news" reaction.

She did point out that of the 19.5 million Bitcoin that are presently in circulation, 15 million haven't changed in 155 days and are therefore still in "strong hands," which may mean that most of their holders are keeping a longer-term view.

Wood's company was one of ten ETF issuers that introduced the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, a spot Bitcoin ETF, on January 11.

Following the close of trading last week, the Ark 21Shares ETF presently has $705.8 million in Bitcoin, according to data from BitMEX Research.

The only products that hold more Bitcoin are Grayscale's GBTC, BlackRock's IBIT, and Fidelity's FBTC.

According to data from Cathie's ARK, ARK Invest also started to purchase a significant amount of Coinbase stock in February 2022.

As of right now, it owns 7.187 million shares, valued at $843 million, spread across multiple ETFs.

However, the company has been aggressively selling Coinbase stock since June 7, 2023, when it had 11.43 million shares.

Sources:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/substitution-gold-for-bitcoin-now-underway-cathie-wood

https://youtu.be/hFg1TMACw4I

https://www.longtermtrends.net/bitcoin-vs-gold/

https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin

https://x.com/BitMEXResearch/status/1753714765136834929

https://cathiesark.com/ark-combined-holdings-of-coin