Cathie Wood rejected investor Jason Calacanis’s description of Bitcoin as a dead cat, arguing the cryptocurrency still has substantial potential. Her response came days after ARK Invest sold more than 1.5 million shares of its ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, valued at approximately $40 million. Michael Saylor also defended Bitcoin, describing it as a $1.6 trillion success. In an ARK podcast, Wood said artificial intelligence would create a highly deflationary and productive economy, with real GDP growth potentially reaching 7% or 8% from around 3%. She argued that rising short-term rates could expose banks and private equity firms to counterparty risk, while Bitcoin’s decentralized structure carries no such risk. The discussion also covered open-weight AI models and their potential use by both attackers and defenders of Bitcoin-related systems. Bitcoin was trading at $81,773, more than 1% higher over 24 hours but about 35% below its $126,080 all-time high.