ARK Invest, the investment firm led by Cathie Wood, has been actively managing its holdings in Coinbase (COIN) stock amidst a fluctuating cryptocurrency market. On December 5, 2023, ARK sold a substantial number of Coinbase shares, amounting to 237,572 across its three funds.
This sale was significant, considering the Coinbase stock closed at $140 per share, allowing ARK to net at least $33 million from this transaction alone.
In a detailed breakdown of this sale, ARK Invest offloaded 201,711 Coinbase shares from the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), with additional sales of 28,535 and 7,326 shares from the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF) and the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW), respectively.
This sale is one of ARK’s largest daily COIN sales in 2023, following a massive 478,356 COIN sale on July 14 and a 248,838 COIN sale on July 17, when the Coinbase stock traded around $105.
Coinbase’s stock itself has been experiencing a surge, posting a 280% year-to-date increase and a new record high above $147.4 on December 5, a level not seen since April 2022.
Despite these gains, the stock is still over 60% below its all-time high of $342.98, achieved in November 2021 during the peak of the crypto bull market.
ARK Invest’s strategy appears to be a mix of selling off COIN shares while actively investing in other fintech companies. For example, they have recently purchased additional shares in Robinhood, a Coinbase competitor, signaling a strategic shift in their investment focus.
These purchases align with Robinhood’s ongoing expansion, including the introduction of commission-free stock trading in the UK and planned expansion into the European Union’s crypto trading market.
In a broader market context, the cryptocurrency market has shown a notable resurgence, with Bitcoin briefly surpassing the $42,000 mark, a level not seen since the Terra ecosystem crash in May 2022. This surge represents over a 150% increase year-to-date.
However, the performance of other major cryptocurrencies like Ether and Binance Coin BNB -2.45% has been more subdued, with the total cryptocurrency market capitalization exceeding $1.6 trillion for the first time since April 2022.