Cathie Wood Predicts Trump May Propel Bitcoin into US Strategic Reserve
ARK Invest's visionary CEO, Cathie Wood, has made a compelling case for a potential future Trump administration to go beyond merely holding seized Bitcoin. Instead, Wood suggests the US could actively purchase BTC to build a strategic national reserve, a move she believes would send a powerful, catalytic signal across global markets and governments.
Political Calculus and Bitcoin's Inevitable Rise
Speaking on ARK's "Bitcoin Brainstorm" podcast in early January, Wood posited that the impending 2026 US midterm elections could provide ample motivation for a politically strategic Trump. To avoid being perceived as a "lame duck," a potential Trump administration might seek to engage with the crypto sector by initiating Bitcoin purchases. Wood argues that institutional participation in Bitcoin is "just beginning," and the digital asset's profound scarcity—with nearly 20 million of the 21 million total Bitcoins already in circulation—makes its adoption increasingly hard to overlook. This active buying, rather than passive holding of confiscated assets, would significantly reassert Bitcoin's scarcity value and attract further institutional interest.
A Global Ripple Effect on Fiat Currencies
Wood emphasizes that an explicit move by the US to buy Bitcoin for its reserves would not solely be a domestic market event. She contends it would compel other nations to urgently re-evaluate their own reserve policies. Governments, keen to avoid being "hostage to the dollar," might be spurred to diversify into Bitcoin. This accelerating dynamic could put renewed pressure on emerging market currencies and weaker fiat regimes, as the world witnesses Washington's pioneering shift from merely seizing BTC to actively competing for it in the open market. While a precise mechanism for such purchases was not outlined, Wood noted that any strategy would logically need to be "budget-neutral" to be feasible. At the time of the discussion, Bitcoin was trading around $90,578.
