Cathie Wood's Ark Invest offloaded another $20 million worth of Coinbase shares

Ark Invest’s Coinbase selling spree reached $50 million last week after offloading another 133,823 COIN ($20.6 million) on Friday, according to the company’s latest trade filing.

Of the total Coinbase shares offloaded on Friday, Cathie Wood’s investment management firm sold 107,151 shares ($16.5 million) from its Innovation exchange-traded fund, 15,892 shares ($2.4 million) from its Next Generation Internet ETF and 10,780 shares from its Fintech Innovation ETF ($1.7 million).

Adding to the $25.3 million worth of COIN it sold on Wednesday and $4.1 million on Thursday, Ark unloaded a total of $50 million in Coinbase shares from its funds last week — despite the stock falling around 10%.

Ark has continued to rebalance its fund weightings after also selling $200 million worth of Coinbase shares in December amid a surge in COIN’s price — up more than 40% last month.

Coinbase stock traded for $153.98 at market close on Friday, down around 1% on the day, according to TradingView. The stock is up over 350% during the past year but remains 55% down from an all-time high of $342.98 set during the peak of the crypto bull market in November 2021.

Bitcoin spot ETF issuers turn to Coinbase for custody

The crypto industry has been vying for a bitcoin spot ETF for years, with Ark Invest/21Shares, Valkyrie and Bitwise among the current total of 14 asset managers hoping to finally win approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this week.

The majority of the issuers — including Ark, as well as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and Grayscale — have tasked Coinbase to provide custodial services, should their funds be approved. However, that has led to concerns regarding a lack of diversification and counterparty risk. Fidelity and VanEck are notable exceptions, choosing self-custody and Gemini for their funds, respectively.