Cathie Wood is not the one to play safe. The CEO of Ark Invest has built a reputation (and a name) for going big on tech and innovation, frequently doubling down on predictions that raise eyebrows on Wall Street. Her latest market predictions are bold, even by her own standards. According to Wood, by 2030, Tesla shares will leap more than 7x higher to reach $2,600. She also claims that Bitcoin on the other hand is on a path to an utterly breathtaking $700,000, and maybe even $1.5 million.

With each prediction placing a brave wager on the destiny of automation and decentralized finance, investors can only put their faith in one of them and ask themselves, which one of them has a fair chance of truly getting off the ground?

Tesla to hit $2,600, a Fantasy or more?

Wood’s optimism for Tesla extends far beyond the electric vehicle business. She views the company developing into a SaaS giant fueled by its full self-driving technology and robotaxi network that she estimates has the potential to represent as much as 90% of the value of Tesla by the end of the decade. Central to this vision is a bold rollout plan, in which the CEO Elon Musk reports a robotaxi unveiling planned for June, and he’s hoping to have a mass-market launch of Tesla’s humanoid robot, Optimus, in the next few years. Musk said,

“Scale Optimus up faster than any product, I think, in history, to get millions of units per year as soon as possible.”

Musk hinted at manufacturing 1 million units of Optimus per year by 2029. Wood anticipates that Tesla’s FSD software will have 80% margins, a revolutionary figure compared to the automaker’s current margins of 15–20% from selling vehicles. If her estimate turns into a reality, Tesla might switch from being an automobile company into a subscription-based technology giant.

Bitcoin to reach $700K–$1.5M

Wood’s thesis on Bitcoin relies on the assets’ limited supply and increasing popularity as “digital gold”, an inflation hedge and a bet against fiscal uncertainty. With only slightly more than 1 million bitcoins remaining to be mined, she thinks that scarcity, combined with institutional investment, could drive the cryptocurrency into the sky.

Although she is not alone in believing so. Ark analyst David Puell says,

“We have a million more coins, roughly, to be minted ever, and institutions are just testing the waters right now. And then there’s the emerging market use cases as well. So we think we have miles to go.”

Throw in the political context, crypto-friendly policies from the Trump administration, and the stars may be aligning for another crypto supercycle. Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time Bitcoin has defied the ones who doubted, but $700K to $1.5M is far from where it is now, and the journey is far from smooth.

Which Bet Seems More Appealing?

Wood’s bullishness on both stems from her faith in exponential technology-driven growth. However, if one is to consider risk-reward, the more reasonable route may be Bitcoin. Tesla’s valuation today already factors in huge future gains. It’s trading at more than 220x forward earnings, pricing FSD, Optimus, and so forth. That doesn’t leave much margin for failure, considering regulatory challenges and the unknown consumer demand for robotaxis and home bots. Bitcoin on the other hand is still acting like a reckless teenager, but one with ever more mainstream credentials.

If the narrative of digital gold holds and institutions pick up their pace, Wood’s outlandish Bitcoin goal could end up being the less outlandish of the two. Cathie Wood’s predictions walk the tightrope between vision and speculation, and both Tesla and Bitcoin will retain their loyalists and detractors. In the war of hasty projections, Bitcoin seems to have a slightly more plausible path. Tesla’s aspirations are revolutionary, to be sure, but their valuation already presumes the revolution has occurred. Between regulatory challenges, execution risk, and consumer adoption uncertainty, $2,600 by 2030 seems more wishful than realistic.

Bitcoin, while risky and still developing, has fewer operational moving parts, and arguably more macro tailwinds. Whether her $2,600 call on Tesla or her $700K wager on Bitcoin is correct, there is no doubt that she’s wagering on a world drastically transformed by automation, decentralization, and the imagination of investors.