The US is losing the bitcoin movement because of regulation, Cathie Wood says

• The US is losing out on the bitcoin movement, according to Ark Invest's Cathie Wood.
• The vocal bull on bitcoin pointed to US regulators driving firms to operate in other countries.

The US is losing its grasp over the bitcoin movement, thanks to regulators pushing major firms in the industry to operate in other countries, according to ARK Invest founder Cathie Wood.

"It would be nice if the US were leading this movement, but we're losing it because of our regulatory system," Wood said last week at the Fortune Most Powerful Next Gen Conference, referring to crypto firms that have begun to shift their operations outside of the US.

That's largely due to US regulators, Wood said, which have begun to tighten the screws on the crypto industry after the implosion of FTX in late 2022.

She pointed, for instance, to Coinbase, which recently received approval to operate in Bermuda while the firm is being investigated in the US by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Wood also said the collapse of FTX as well as regional lenders like Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank backed up the case for bitcoin.

"The reason it's adopted is, first of all, many people like the idea of a decentralized, transparent, auditable monetary system. It was born out of the 2008/2009 crisis, when people just lost all trust in financial services," she said, according to CoinDesk.

"And, very interestingly, it took another two crises within the last year to prove the concept. FTX failed because it was centralized, opaque, and not auditable."

Wood, for her part, has scooped up large volumes of Coinbase in investment arm, Ark Invest, over the past year. The crypto firm is now the fourth largest holding in Ark's overall portfolio, with $647 million worth of shares split among its exchange traded funds.

She has also been a vocal bull on bitcoin, and predicted earlier this year that the cryptocurrency could rally to $1.5 million by 2030, implying around a 5500% increase from the current price.

Bitcoin traded $26,295 on Thursday, having rebounded 59% since the start of the year. Its price is still well below its all-time-high of $64,000 reached in late 2021.