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

Quick Take

  • Ark Invest offloaded another 133,823 Coinbase shares on Friday — worth around $20.6 million.
  • The latest sales follow the $29 million of COIN stock Ark offloaded earlier last week.

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.

RELATED INDICES

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.

COIN/USD price chart. Image: TradingView.

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.


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About Author

James Hunt is a reporter at The Block, based in the UK. As the writer behind The Daily newsletter, James also keeps you up to speed on the latest crypto news every weekday. Prior to joining The Block in 2022, James spent four years as a freelance writer in the industry, contributing to both publications and crypto project content. James’ coverage spans everything from Bitcoin and Ethereum to Layer 2 scaling solutions, avant-garde DeFi protocols, evolving DAO governance structures, trending NFTs and memecoins, regulatory landscapes, crypto company deals and the latest market updates. You can get in touch with James on Telegram or X via @humanjets or email him at [email protected].

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