Cathie Wooden is arguing that the subsequent section of US coverage and macro might recreate an early-Eighties fashion risk-on regime, one which, in her telling, strengthens the case for bitcoin as a portfolio diversifier even because it complicates the “digital gold” narrative. In a put up on X, the ARK Make investments CEO mentioned “the subsequent three years might be Reaganomics on steroids,” pointing to deregulation, tax cuts, “sound financial coverage,” and “peace via power” as components for a stronger greenback and capped gold costs.
Her January 15 “New 12 months letter,” titled Cathie Wooden’s 2026 Outlook: The US Financial system Is A Coiled Spring, lays out the mechanics behind that analogy and locations crypto explicitly contained in the coverage and productiveness story.
A “Coiled Spring” Macro Thesis
Wooden’s central declare is that the US has seemed sturdier than it truly is as a result of weak point has rotated via rate-sensitive pockets somewhat than hitting the entire economic system directly.
“Regardless of sustained actual gross home product (GDP) progress throughout the previous three years, the underlying US economic system has suffered a rolling recession and has developed right into a coiled spring that might bounce again powerfully throughout the subsequent few years. In response to COVID-related provide shocks, the record-breaking 22-fold surge within the Fed funds charge from 0.25% in March 2022 to five.5% within the sixteen months ended July 2023 pushed housing, manufacturing, non-AI capital spending, and low-to-middle revenue America into recession.”
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She anchors the housing leg with a particular trough: present house gross sales fell 40% from a 5.9 million annual charge in January 2021 to three.5 million in October 2023, which she notes is “a stage final seen in November 2010.”
From there, Wooden pivots to coverage impulse and cash-flow aid. “Due to the confluence of deregulation and decrease taxes (together with tariffs), inflation, and rates of interest, the rolling recession which has characterised the previous couple of years within the US might flip rapidly and sharply throughout the subsequent yr and past. Deregulation is unleashing innovation in each sector, led by the primary AI and Crypto Czar, David Sackswithin the AI and digital property area. In the meantime, decrease taxes on ideas, time beyond regulation, and social safety ought to hand US shoppers vital refunds this quarter, doubtlessly driving actual disposable revenue progress up from ~2% at an annual charge throughout the second half of 2025 to ~8.3% this quarter.”
She additionally argues company money flows might be boosted by accelerated depreciation, writing that it might push the efficient company tax charge “down towards 10%,” with 100% first-year depreciation for gear, software program and home R&D made everlasting and retroactive to January 1, 2025.
Gold, Bitcoin, And The Greenback
Wooden’s inflation case is concrete and component-driven. She factors to grease falling from about $124 on March 8, 2022 to a stage that’s roughly 53% decrease, and down about 22% year-over-year as of ARK’s January 12 knowledge reduce. She provides that single-family house sale costs are down about 15% from the October 2022 peak, whereas present house worth inflation (three-month transferring common) decelerated from roughly 24% YoY in June 2021 to about 1.3%.
On labor, she cites non-farm productiveness up 1.9% YoY (third quarter), compensation per man-hour up 3.2%, and unit labor price inflation at 1.2%. She then pushes a real-time examine: Truflation at 1.7% YoY as of January 7, practically 100 bps under CPI-based inflation.
The crypto hook comes via her try to separate gold’s latest run from bitcoin’s position in portfolios. “Throughout 2025, the gold worth appreciated 65% as the worth of bitcoin slipped 6%. Whereas many observers have attributed the 166% surge within the gold worth from $1,600 to $4,300 for the reason that finish of the US fairness bear market in October 2022 to the chance of inflation, one other interpretation is that international wealth creation… has outpaced the ~1.8% annualized improve within the gold provide globally.”
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Wooden then leans on provide schedules and correlations. She notes bitcoin’s provide is “mathematically metered” to rise about 0.82% per yr for the subsequent two years earlier than slowing to ~0.41%, and argues that diversification — not “digital gold” rhetoric — is the cleaner allocator lens. In ARK’s correlation matrix utilizing weekly returns from 1/1/2020 via 1/6/2026, bitcoin’s correlation is 0.14 to gold, 0.06 to bonds, and 0.28 to the S&P 500; the S&P 500–bonds correlation is proven at 0.27.
Lastly, she brings it again to FX: after a yr during which the trade-weighted greenback (DXY) fell 11% within the first half and 9% for the total yr, Wooden argues that increased US returns on invested capital, pushed by fiscal, deregulation, and US-led technological breakthroughs, might push the greenback increased, echoing the early Reagan interval when “the greenback practically doubled.”
If Wooden’s “Reaganomics on steroids” framing positive aspects traction, the near-term market implication is much less a couple of single bitcoin worth goal and extra about positioning: a regime she expects to characteristic falling inflation, decrease charges, and heavy AI capex (data-center programs funding up 47% to just about $500 billion in 2025, with an additional 20% to roughly $600 billion anticipated in 2026) is one the place allocators might revisit the place bitcoin sits on the chance spectrum, and whether or not its low cross-asset correlation is the extra sturdy thesis than any one-line comparability to gold.
Whereas Wooden’s 2026 outlook doesn’t publish a particular Bitcoin worth goal, ARK has beforehand outlined 2030 situations for BTC of roughly $300,000 (bear), $710,000 (base), and $1.2 million (bull).
At press time, BTC traded at $95,685.
Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
