Ark Invest sells another $20 million worth of Coinbase shares, adds OpenAI to Venture Fund
Quick Take
- Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest offloaded another 77,561 Coinbase shares on Thursday — worth $20.4 million — as the investment firm continues to rebalance its fund weightings.
- Ark’s Venture Fund also invested in OpenAI for the first time — the artificial intelligence firm led by Worldcoin co-founder Sam Altman.
Ark Invest offloaded 77,561 Coinbase shares — worth $20.4 million — across two of its exchange-traded funds on Thursday.
The Cathie Wood-led investment firm sold 63,627 shares ($16.7 million) from its Innovation ETF (ARKK) and 13,934 shares ($3.7 million) from its Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW), according to the company’s latest trade filing.
Ark’s investment strategy aims to let no individual holding take up more than 10% of an ETF’s portfolio to maintain diversification within its funds — meaning it is likely to continue rebalancing its weightings if Coinbase’s stock price continues to rise compared to other holdings in the funds.
According to the firm’s latest disclosures, Coinbase is the second-largest holding within its ARKK ETF, with a weighting of 9.7%, behind Tesla at 9.8%. Coinbase is also the second-largest holding in ARKW, with a weighting of 9.9% — just behind Ark’s own spot Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) at 10.2% of the fund.
ARKK’s Coinbase holdings have a market value of $696 million, whereas ARKW’s COIN weightings are valued at $169 million at current prices. Overall, the ARKK and ARKW funds are up 24% and 55% over the past year, respectively.
Coinbase’s stock traded for $263.01 at market close on Thursday, up nearly 5% on the day and over 7% for the week, according to TradingView. The stock has gained 52% year-to-date and is now within 25% of its prior all-time high of $342.98 set in November 2021.
COIN/USD price chart. Image: TradingView.
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Coinbase is currently valued at $48.9 billion, according to The Block’s data dashboard.
Ark invests in OpenAI for its Venture Fund
The Ark Venture Fund — a private fund not publicly traded on stock exchanges like the firm's ETFs — confirmed yesterday that it had invested in OpenAI for the first time on April 10. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also the co-founder of the eyeball-scanning “proof-of-personhood” crypto project Worldcoin.
“OpenAI is at the forefront of a Cambrian explosion in artificial intelligence capability, having produced several of the most influential breakthroughs in foundational AI research, including both the GPT and DALLE series of models, and launching the first major consumer application of generative AI, ChatGPT, which is the fastest application in history to grow to 100 million active users,” Ark Invest wrote in an email to clients on Thursday seen by The Block.
Ark’s Venture Fund aims to hold shares of companies throughout their private and public market lifecycles, from early stage to mega-cap. The fund has generated a return of 21% since its inception in 2022, according to its portfolio page.
The Ark Venture Fund previously invested in OpenAI rival Anthropic, which is reportedly keen on finding a buyer for its shares owned by the defunct crypto exchange FTX.
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