ARK Invest's Cathie Wood Predicts Bitcoin to Become an Effective Portfolio Diversification Tool by 2026

According to ChainCatcher, citing market reports, ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood stated in her 2026 outlook that Bitcoin, due to its low correlation with major asset classes such as gold, stocks, and bonds, is expected to offer higher risk-adjusted returns for asset allocators and become an effective portfolio diversification tool in the coming years. ARK's analysis of weekly returns from January 2020 to early January 2026 showed that Bitcoin's correlation coefficient with gold was only 0.14, significantly lower than the 0.27 correlation coefficient between the S&P 500 and bonds. Bitcoin's lowest correlation was with bonds (0.06), and its highest was with the S&P 500 (0.28), yet it still remains much lower than correlations between traditional asset classes. Wood noted that Bitcoin's protocol strictly limits its supply growth, with the annual issuance growth rate expected to be about 0.8% over the next two years, then slowing to approximately 0.4% per year thereafter. This mathematically fixed supply gives Bitcoin inherent scarcity. She pointed out that the predictable supply model, combined with increasing demand, has driven a 360% price increase in Bitcoin since the end of 2022.