Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood may be bullish about bitcoin, but she doesn’t think meme coins will enjoy the same uptick in prices.
“I think that the SEC did a very important thing in declaring these meme coins, ‘Not securities.’ What they essentially were saying is, ‘We are not going to regulate them, and it’s buyer beware,’” Wood said in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday.
“There’s nothing like losing money for people to learn, and they’ll learn that the SEC and regulators are not taking responsibility for these meme coins,” Wood said, adding she expects to see some “fearsome declines” in meme coin prices.
A representative for Wood did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
There has been renewed interest in cryptocurrencies following President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Trump, who was initially a crypto skeptic, signed an executive order earlier this month to establish a strategic bitcoin reserve and a digital asset stockpile. He also released his own meme coin, $TRUMP, days before his inauguration on January 20.
Wood told Bloomberg on Tuesday her private funds would not be investing in meme coins.
“The combination of AI and blockchain technology is creating millions, millions of these meme coins. We think most of them are not going to be worth very much,” Wood said, adding only “a few crypto assets will gain most of the spoils in the entire ecosystem.”
When asked if Trump’s meme coin could become worthless, Wood said it may not be the case.
“Meme coins will be collector’s items, so as digital collector’s items. Of course, some will withstand the judgment of time, and that may be one of them,” Wood said of Trump’s meme coin.
“But our working assumption is that when you are talking about millions of meme coins, that’s just a step too far and that most of them are not going to be worth very much,” Wood continued.
Earlier in the interview, Wood told Bloomberg that the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda toward crypto would likely benefit digital assets like bitcoin. Wood previously said she expects bitcoin to reach $1.5 million by 2030.
“We believe that the deregulation that we are seeing here in the United States is going to be very important to institutions moving into this new asset class,” Wood said.
Wood isn’t the only investor who is optimistic about crypto’s prospects under Trump.
“Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary said in a recent interview on Fox News’ “My View with Lara Trump” that crypto is “going to become part of all the sectors of our economy.”
“The reason they’re not comfortable with it right now is they’ve watched the cowboy era of crypto, but all the crypto cowboys are in jail or out of business,” O’Leary said in the interview, which aired Saturday.
“So now we’re in a new phase. There’s a new tone with the government. Trump has put it forward,” O’Leary added.
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