Blockchain.com co-founder Nicolas Cary hit back at Cathie Wood after the investor took a swipe at he crypto business by questioning its valuation and management.
“If you look at the others like Blockchain.com, its valuation over the past year has tripled while Coinbase in our portfolios is down 40%. That makes no sense,” Wood, the CEO of Ark Invest, told CNBC on Tuesday.
“Coinbase is a far better and well diversified company, right? And I would argue better managed company.”
Blockchain.com is a cryptocurrency trading platform and wallet, as well as a direct rival to Coinbase. Blockchain.com is still a private company. Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest funds hold shares of Coinbase, which is listed in the United States. Shares of Coinbase are down more than 50% over the past year.
Wood’s comments came in the context of an answer about valuations of technology stocks as interest rates rise. She spoke about the difference between public and private market valuations of technology companies.
“This (Blockchain.com) is up threefold in one year and Coinbase is down 40%. Does that make any sense to you? I think the private market has this more right than the public markets. And the reasons the public markets aren’t efficient is that they are not doing the research,” Wood said.
Cary, co-founder and vice chairman of Blockchain.com, hit back at Wood’s comments.
“Well there’s definitely a difference between private markets and public markets and Cathie’s position has taken a pretty big haircut. I think what’s interesting to note is yeah, our company valuation our company’s valuation did triple, and that was in the context of a global pandemic, a collapse in tech equities and a land war breaking out in Europe,” Cary told CNBC in an interview on Wednesday.
“Coinbase’s position is not well understood in the market … in the long term though I think both companies have a lot of upside, and our recent investors are very excited about our future. We’ve been working very hard to build a composition of revenue that’s minting better quarterly results.”
When pushed to respond to Wood’s specific comments on Blockchain.com’s management, Cary said: “I think the market is pretty clear — her position is down 50% and ours is up 3 X so…”
Cary said that Blockchain.com is taking a “patient approach” to going public and that it is currently “well capitalized.”
“Tech equities have obviously taken a pounding, Cathie’s positions are down all over the place, we’re going to take our time with it. We need to see the crypto markets sort of be better understood by the public markets,” Cary said.
