Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood Highlights El Salvador’s Bitcoin Push as a Way Innovation is Improving People’s Lives | Currency News | Financial and business news

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A woman withdraws money from a bitcoin ATM in El Salvador.

Camilo Freedman/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Cathie Wood noted that the adoption of bitcoin in El Salvador has doubled the number of citizens who can access financial services. Ark’s CEO believes that allocating capital to innovation will benefit the lives of people around the world in the long term. Thanks to mobile phone technology, billions of people around the world have been able to access financial services, Wood noted. Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 things before the opening bell

El Salvador’s big bitcoin ambitions may have hit a snag in the crypto crisis, but one market star has a good word for them: Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood.

When asked if the financial sector increases wealth inequality, Wood told Time magazine that allocating capital to innovation will benefit people’s lives around the world in the long run.

The widely-followed investor pointed to El Salvador, where she believes President Nayib Bukele’s push on bitcoin has given citizens financial opportunities they didn’t have before.

“The president of El Salvador is giving $30 worth of bitcoins to every eligible adult,” she said in the Time interview published Sunday.

“And what we saw there is that basically, while only 1.2 million people have access to financial services, 3 million people now have access to new banking services and new financial services, thanks to blockchain technology.”

Bitcoin became legal tender in El Salvador in September, making it the first country in the world to do so. The Central American country has developed its own digital wallet, called “Chivo”, which allows people to withdraw cash from more than 200 ATMs.

Thanks to mobile phone technology, billions of people around the world have been able to access financial services, Wood noted. This, coupled with blockchain technology, will go a long way in bridging the gap between rich and poor, she believes.

“So in my book, the more capital we can allocate to innovation, the better we can improve the lives of people around the world,” she said.

El Salvador’s millennial president is known for trading bitcoin on his phone. As the major cryptocurrency fell, he touted buying the dip and the Central American country increased its holdings to around 1,391 bitcoins, according to analysis by Bloomberg.

Bitcoin’s recent declines have cost El Salvador around $10 million, Bloomberg estimates. Bitcoin was at $42,262, down about 2.5% from the past 24 hours on Monday, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Trading volume remained relatively unchanged over the past week.

Despite the crisis, other countries and even several US cities have revealed bitcoin projects, and the mayor of Rio De Janeiro said last week that he would invest 1% of the city’s reserves in cryptocurrency.

Elsewhere in the interview, Wood told Time that Ark is freely sharing its innovation investment strategy, so individual investors know what’s coming.

The CEO and founder of Ark became a household name after the company’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) had a bumper year in 2020, when it grew by 150%. While the fund has faltered recently, dropping 38% in 2021, Wood’s view is highly valued by many retail investors.

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