Cathie Wood's Ark Invest Says Ethereum Is A Big Idea That Will Transform The Financial Services Industry — ETH Is Beginning To 'Develop Attributes' Similar To US Treasury Bills

Benzinga · 10/16 04:04

Asset management firm Ark Invest expressed belief in the transformative potential of the Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) network for the financial services industry.

What Happened: On Tuesday, Cathie Wood, the influential founder of the company, shared on X a research paper that explained why Ark Invest believes Ethereum and its staking yield would play a critical role in decentralized finance (DeFi).

The paper highlighted Ethereum’s position as an “institutional-grade asset” with yield-bearing potential.

“Our research suggests that, as an asset, ETH is beginning to develop attributes in the digital asset space similar to those of U.S. Treasury bills,” the paper read.

Ark Invest added that ETH and its staking yield were becoming benchmarks, or reference indicators, within the digital asset industry, used to evaluate other Layer 1s, risk profiles, and returns.

Furthermore, the paper noted that the network was setting “meaningful value” by virtue of its large market capitalization and millions of monthly active users.

As of this writing, around 34.223 million ETH was staked in the network, representing more than 28% of the asset’s circulating supply, according to Staking Rewards. The annualized average yield rate across the network was 3.46%.

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Why It Matters: The latest endorsement reflected Wood’s earlier bullish prediction on Ethereum. Earlier this year, at the Big Ideas investor conference, Wood projected that Ethereum’s market capitalization could reach $20 trillion by 2032, translating to a per-token price of over $166,000.

Interestingly, Ark Investment withdrew from launching an exchange-traded fund (ETF) directly investing in Ether, choosing to focus on a spot Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) ETF i.e, ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (BATS:ARKB).

Despite this, Wood’s recent tweet suggests that Ark Invest continues to explore ways to expose investors to Ethereum technology, recognizing its potential to reshape the financial services industry.

Price Action: At the time of writing, Ether was broadly unchanged at $2,614.69, up just 0.19% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro.  

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.