Cathie Wood’s ARK loads up crypto bags, buys $19.9M Block shares

June 9, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Cathie Wood’s ARK loads up crypto bags, buys .9M Block shares

Ark Invest

Just days after buying $21 million of Coinbase shares, ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood has added another $19.9 million in Block Inc. shares across its ETFs.

ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood doesn’t appear to have been swayed by recent crypto regulatory action, buying another $19.9 million shares of Block Inc. right after buying $21 million in Coinbase stock.

Wood’s latest buying spree comes despite the United States Securities and Exchange Commission this week suing two of the industry’s exchange heavyweights, Binance and Coinbase, for offering what the regulator considers to be unregistered securities, among other things.

Coinbase's share price has been depressed in the days following the SEC lawsuit, however, Block Inc.'s shares saw a sharp rise in that same time period.

ARK Invest’s 305,573 new shares of Block came across six buys between June 7-8, which now represents ARK’s fourth largest holding at 4.81%, according to ARK Invest Daily Trades.

Of the new shares, 240,174 were added to its ARK Innovation (ARKK) ETF, 39,099 shares to ARK Next Generation Internet (ARKW) and the remaining 26,300 shares to ARK Fintech Innovation (ARKF).

As for Coinbase, ARK Invest bought 419,324 shares — worth about $21.6 million — across three buys on June 6, which came in the midst of COIN plummeting nearly 20% overnight on June 5.

While many consider the lawsuits to have harmed the crypto firms, Wood recently told Bloomberg that the tougher charges laid against Binance may eventually work in Coinbase’s favor:

“We have Binance under increasing regulatory scrutiny for more criminal activities, fraud being one of them, therefore we have the competition for Coinbase disappearing, so that’s a good thing longer term for Coinbase.”

Coinbase is now ARK Invest’s seventh largest holding at 4.39%, with its total of 11,440 COIN shares spread across its ARKF, ARKK and ARKW ETFs, according to Cathie’s ARK, a website devoted to tracking her portfolio.

Since Q1, ARK Invest has increased the number of COIN shares by 8.2% — which comes on the back of 20.2% and 25.2% increases in Q4 2022 and Q1 this year, according to the website.

Because of regulatory uncertainty, innovation seems to be leaving the US for more friendly regimes. Unfortunate. I believe it will become an election-year issue. https://t.co/PvqK9W27Fd
— Cathie Wood (@CathieDWood) June 4, 2023

While Wood is becoming increasingly bullish on Coinbase, she believes the SEC’s regulation by enforcement approach has taken a toll on cryptocurrency innovators in the U.S.

The tech-savvy CEO is ultra bullish on Bitcoin (BTC) over the long term too.

In the Bloomberg interview, Wood explained that Bitcoin was built to thrive during times of market turbulence and regulatory uncertainty:

“Why would Bitcoin do well in that circumstance? It will do well because it’s an antidote to counterparty risk in the traditional financial system.”

In April 2022, Wood predicted that Bitcoin would reach $1 million by 2030.

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Cathie Wood’s ARK loading up on Coinbase shares again, buying $18M

March 24, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Cathie Wood’s ARK loading up on Coinbase shares again, buying M

10B5-1

ARK Invest purchased 269,928 shares in Coinbase on March 23, only two days after it sold $13.5 million, its first sale of Coinbase shares this year.

Cathie Wood’s investment management firm has gone back to buying Coinbase shares again, just a day after COIN’s stock price dipped amid news of its Wells notice.

On March 23, ARK Invest purchased 268,928 Coinbase shares via its ARKK Innovation and ARKW Next Generation Internet exchange-traded funds. The shares wereworth $17.88 million at the time of writing.

Only two days prior, and before the news of the Wells notice broke, ARK Invest sold 160,887 Coinbase shares from its ARK Fintech Innovation ETF. The sale was the first time any of ARK Invest’s ETFs shed Coinbase shares in 2023.

Cathie Wood and Ark Invest's trade activity from today 3/23 pic.twitter.com/yyubxTegZj
— Ark Invest Daily (@ArkkDaily) March 24, 2023

Coinbase’s share price has failed to recover since it shared news it had received a Wells notice warning of possible enforcement action from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which led to COIN shares dropping around 21%.

Shares in Coinbase dipped to a low of $64.27 after trading began on March 23, and at time of writing were trading at $66.87 in after-hours trading, according to Barron’s.

*Coinbase’s share price from March 17 to March 23. Source:* *Barron’s*

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong had also sold shares in his firm between March 17 to March 20 — just days prior to the Wells notice and share price dip.

SEC filings indicate, however, that Coinbase executives and insiders all enter into 10B5-1 selling plans months in advance and that this tranche of sales was pursuant to a trading plan adopted on Aug. 16.

*SEC filing showing the latest shares sold by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. Source:* *SEC Archives*

While the SEC reached a settlement with crypto exchange Kraken on Feb. 9 after alleging its staking services qualified as securities, Coinbase has repeatedly asserted that its staking products are fundamentally different from Kraken’s and they cannot be universally labeled as securities.

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Cathie Wood’s ARK adds $12.1M in Coinbase shares amid turbulent markets

November 11, 2022 Coin Telegraph

<div>Cathie Wood's ARK adds .1M in Coinbase shares amid turbulent markets</div>

ARK investments

Ark Investments topped up its Coinbase stock shortly after FTX's liquidity issues were revealed, which came after Coinbase stated that it had “minimal exposure” to the troubled trading platform.

Amid the FTX and crypto market chaos, Cathie Wood-led Ark Investments has increased its Coinbase (COIN) holdings with a purchase of 237,675 COIN shares worth about $12.1 million on Nov. 9.

Of the 237,675 COIN shares, Ark Investment Management added 207,527 shares to its ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), 22,416 shares to its ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW), and another 7,732 shares to its ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF).

The tech-focused investment firm’s purchase came after Coinbase stated in response to FTX’s liquidity crisis that it has “minimal exposure” to the now cash-strapped cryptocurrency trading platform with only $15 million on deposit to “facilitate business operations and customer trades.”

Coinbase also added that it has no exposure to FTX’s native token FTT — which has fallen 84.08% since Binance announced its decision to liquidate its entire FTT holdings late on Nov. 7 — and its partner trading firm Alameda Research.

Wood’s Nov. 9 purchase came following a 10.84% fall in COIN’s share price on Nov. 8, which was an expected result follow on from the FTX controversy, according to Owen Lau, a stock analyst at investment banking firm Oppenheimer:

“While COIN has minimal exposure to FTX, before there is enough evidence that the contagion risk is contained, the pressure on crypto prices will likely weigh on COIN.”

It was also the investment firm’s first trade for Coinbase since it sold off over 1.4 million COIN shares — which were then worth $75 million — across ARKK, ARKF and ARKW on Jul. 26. 2022.

The large sell-off came in response to the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) conducting an investigation into allegations of Coinbase engaging in the insider trading of unregistered securities.

However, Wood’s latest buying spree has brought the firm’s COIN shares tally back up to 7.625 million, which is about one million shares less than its peak of 8.675 million recorded on Jul. 20. 2022, according to data from Cathie’s Ark.

Coinbase now has the 11th largest holdings in Ark’s main investment fund ARKK, which now represents 3.79% of the portfolio.

COIN’s stock went up 10.74% on Thursday, increasing its share price to $50.92, according to Yahoo Finance.

ARKF