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Ark Invest: We only do one thing, and that is Invest in the technologies that define the future

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We are on the cusp of five paradigm-breaking technologies, and blockchain is one of them.

原文标题：《 Investing in the Future | Cathie Wood, Chris Burniske, Yassine Elmandjra 》

By David Hoffman, Bankless co-founder

Cathie Wood of Ark Invest sat down with Ryan and me (Bankless co-founder David Hoffman) on Friday to talk about her thoughts on Crypto. (The full podcast is available herehere‌)

ARK does one thing: invest in the technologies that define the future.

They did a really good job of it, and more importantly, ARK invested in paradigm-breaking technologies that the rest of the market had fundamentally mispriced.

Mutou believes that "investing in the future is investing in the future", which has helped ARK become a financial giant with assets under management of $75 billion.

While older financial institutions trace the market back to build indicators and models to guide their investments, ARK looks forward to the market by looking ahead and investing in the technologies that will shape the future.

ARK believes we are on the cusp of five paradigm-breaking technologies, all of which are making significant progress at the same time -- blockchain is one of them.

Similar to our Crypto Renaissance theory, which Crypto will help usher in a new age Renaissance similar to the 14th-century Renaissance, Mutou believes that the next 10-20 years will usher in the greatest period of technological change in human history.

Five large technology platforms entered the growth phase of adopting the S-curve almost simultaneously... This has never happened before in history.

Also participating in the podcast are Placeholder VC's Chris Burniske, who led ARK into the Crypto rabbit hole in 2014, and ARK's current Crypto analyst Yassine Elmandjra.

This is probably the best podcast we've ever recorded, and it's worth listening to.

Here are my three key points:

1. DeFi is hollowing out banks (and banks know it)

To get a sense of the broader banking environment, She listened to jpmorgan's earnings call and was surprised to see the bank's loan growth during the recovery... Is negative.

Why is that?

Because the crypto. Given DeFi's yield advantage and the explosive growth in demand, even if there is only a small revenue loss for banks, the loss still has a significant impact on growth expectations across the industry. Stock prices are set on margin, and marginal growth is important.

Look at this

What if the regulatory pressure we've seen recently is because banks are scared?

She hinted that this might be the case.

Given that the banking system is one of the most entrenched existing institutions, this is not surprising...

ETH staking may be the new "risk-free rate"

Chris Burniske asked Ms. Wood if she could envision a future in which Ethereum's risk-minimization rates provide a new benchmark for Internet asset valuations.

This is the idea that ETH staking might be used as a new benchmark for the performance of a digital portfolio, and Ms Staking goes a step further by comparing the reliable rate of staking ETH with the monetary policy of a central bank.

This elevates ETH to the status of a global macro force similar to the US bond market, not just the Internet native economy.

In short, She thinks ETH can be an Internet bond.

3. DeFi will accelerate innovation in non-Crypto areas

I asked Wooden sister and Chris:

"Do you think ethereum's capital coordination capabilities and DeFi's open financial services will allow innovation in other areas to happen at a faster pace?"

One of ARK's core arguments is that the growth of each technology platform has the ability to accelerate the growth of all other technology platforms.

She linked Ethereum's capital coordination rights to "The DAO," which raised $150 million of ETH in 2016, and was outspoken in support of DeFi's efforts to provide "frictionless financing."

What happens to the pace of innovation when financial and capital co-ordination instruments are freely available?

Biggest takeaway: Don't look back

Perhaps my biggest takeaway is that Ms Wood is talking about backward-looking institutions alongside forward-looking retail investors.

Instead of looking ahead to inform their investments, these institutions use historical analysis and financial models to allocate investments, which fundamentally supports the assumption that the future looks like the past.

No wonder they missed Crypto.

If we've learned anything about the 2020s, it's that we're in a much messier time than we predicted, and if you expect history to inform your model of the future, you're making a fundamental mistake.

That means opportunities are wide open for retail investors. We see this with TSLA... We see this in Crypto as well.

Where institutions are resisting change, retail investors are embracing it.

Don't look back.