Cathie Wood says Elon Musk will return to ‘green’ Bitcoin, ETF is now more likely

The CEO of Ark Investment Management, Cathie Wood, believes the controversial Tesla CEO and Dogecoin proponent, Elon Musk, will again embrace Bitcoin once greater adoption of renewable energy has occurred within the mining sector.

Despite relations between Musk and the Bitcoin community souring, Wood predicted: “Elon will come back and be part of [the Bitcoin] ecosystem.”

Wood’s comments come on the same day that Ark’s Sam Korus published an update the firm’s “open-source Solar+Battery+Bitcoin mining model” to allow historic testing of the system’s efficacy.

Korus concluded: “The takeaway is that regardless of a Bitcoin bull of bear market, Bitcoin mining can incentivize additional solar and battery installations,” adding:

“The next step is to dimension solar+battery+Bitcoin mining at the household level.”

Musk replied to the post, noting that while such a system could be achieved over time, the recent “extreme” growth in Bitcoin’s hash rate could not have been supported by renewables.

He advocated for the top 10 mining pools by hash rate to post audited breakdowns of their energy sources.

Can you post audited numbers of renewable energy vs not of your private jets?

— Dan Hedl (@danheld) May 20, 2021

With Wood anticipating renewables will soon represent a larger share of the energy fueling the mining sector, the Ark Invest founder is steadfast in her predictions of $500,000 BTC for the future despite the recent crash that saw prices tumble more than 50% over the course of two weeks.

Wood characterized the markets as having entered a “capitulation phase,” asserting it is “a really great time to buy” despite acknowledging: “You never know how low is low when a market gets very emotional.”

Wood is putting her money where her mouth is too, with Ark Invest accumulating shares in Coinbase while the stock has been trading below its direct listing reference price of $250.

The crypto downturn accelerated with Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s apparent u-turn on Bitcon, with Musk criticizing the environmental impacts of Bitcoin mining.

Wood also believes the heavy market retracement improves the prospects of U.S. regulators approving a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, or ETF, stating: “The odds are going up now that we have had this correction.”