In short
- Ark Make investments has printed its 2026 Outlook report, by which CEO Cathie Wooden flags Bitcoin as a greater asset for portfolio diversification as she sounds the alarm on gold’s rally.
- Wooden’s desire for Bitcoin is pushed by its algorithmically fastened provide, in contrast to gold, whose miners can enhance manufacturing in response to excessive costs.
- Bitcoin maintains an especially low correlation with different main belongings, making it a robust diversification device, particularly in a currency-revaluation setting, Wooden mentioned.
Bitcoin’s mathematically capped provide makes it a superior scarce asset to gold in an period of rising institutional demand, in accordance with Ark Make investments founder and CEO Cathie Wooden.
In her “2026 Outlook” report, Wooden analyzes the current divergence between the 2 belongings.
Years of strain haven’t damaged the US economic system, however have wound it tight. In a New 12 months’s letter, @CathieDWood shares her coiled spring idea and 2026 outlook, together with insights on inflation, productiveness, AI, bitcoin, gold, the greenback, and valuations.https://t.co/B7PFLGpqFG
— ARK Make investments (@ARKInvest) January 15, 2026
Gold vs. Bitcoin
Whereas gold surged 65% in 2025, Bitcoin declined 6%. Wooden attributes gold’s 166% rally since October 2022 to not inflation fears, however to “world wealth creation” outpacing the steel’s modest ~1.8% annual provide development.
“The incremental demand for gold might be outstripping its provide development,” she wrote. Bitcoin, nonetheless, presents a basically completely different provide dynamic.
“Gold miners, by boosting manufacturing of gold, can do one thing not attainable with Bitcoin,” Wooden notes. “Bitcoin is mathematically metered to extend ~0.82% per yr for the subsequent two years, at which level its development will decelerate to ~0.41% per yr.”
This inelastic provide schedule implies that any surge in demand—comparable to continued inflows into spot ETFs—would have a stronger impact on Bitcoin’s worth. “If Bitcoin demand continues to extend, the bellwether crypto may gain advantage greater than gold as a consequence of its mathematical nature,” the report suggests.
Bitwise CIO Matthew Hougan just lately echoed this shortage thesis, suggesting sustained institutional demand that outpaces provide might ignite a “parabolic blowoff” for Bitcoin.
“Bitcoin’s efficiency in 2025 appears weak in isolation, however context issues,” Georgii Verbitskii, Founding father of TYMIO, informed Decrypt. “In 2024, Bitcoin rose sharply… a interval of consolidation the next yr is just not solely regular however justified.”
Verbitskii agreed with Wooden’s core structural argument, noting that “when capital rotates into exhausting belongings throughout a world forex revaluation, Bitcoin belongs in that very same class as gold.”
Nonetheless, he highlighted a important divergence, that gold miners can enhance manufacturing when costs rise, however Bitcoin’s provide is fastened. “That asymmetry implies that when demand returns, Bitcoin’s worth response is structurally extra explosive,” Verbitskii mentioned.
Wanting forward
Wooden’s evaluation additionally locations gold’s present rally in a sobering historic context.
The ratio of gold’s market capitalization to the M2 cash provide has reached a degree final seen within the early Thirties and Nineteen Eighties—intervals she describes as “excessive.” Traditionally, sustained declines from such peaks have coincided with sturdy fairness market returns.
For allocators, Wooden highlights a ultimate, important benefit: diversification.
The correlation between Bitcoin and gold is decrease than that between the S&P 500 and bonds, she famous, concluding that Bitcoin “ought to be a great supply of diversification for asset allocators on the lookout for greater returns per unit of threat throughout the years forward.”
“Wanting into 2026, I don’t see this as a buy-or-sell query, however slightly a maintain query,” Verbitskii mentioned. “Gold presents stability, Bitcoin presents uneven upside. Traditionally, Bitcoin has grown sooner than gold, and I anticipate that sample to proceed.”
