Cathy Wood’s ARK loads crypto bags, buys $19.9M block shares

Just after buying $21 million worth of shares in Coinbase, Block Inc. Cathy Wood, CEO of ARK Invest, isn’t impressed by the recent crypto regulatory action, after buying $19.9 million worth of shares.

Wood’s latest buying spree comes despite the United States Securities Commission suing two exchange heavyweights of the industry – Binance (June 5) and Coinbase (June 6) – over what the regulator considers unregistered securities, among other things .

Coinbase’s share price declined in the days following the SEC lawsuit, however, Block Inc’s shares saw a sharp rise in the same time period.

ARK Invest’s new block of 305,573 shares came in six purchases between June 7-8, now representing ARK’s fourth largest holding of 4.81%, According ARK Invest for 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).

For Coinbase, ARK Invest bought 419,324 shares — worth about $21.6 million — in three purchases on June 6, which came in the midst of COIN’s nearly 20% drop on June 5.

While many believe the lawsuits have hurt crypto firms recently, Wood Said Bloomberg that the tough allegations leveled against Binance may ultimately work in Coinbase’s favor:

“We have Binance under increased regulatory scrutiny for more criminal activities, fraud being one of them, so we have competition for Coinbase disappearing, so that is a good thing for Coinbase.”

Coinbase is now ARK Invest’s seventh-largest holding at 4.39%, with a total of 11,440 COIN shares spread across its ARKF, ARKK and ARKW ETFs. According to Cathy’s ARK.com.

Since Q1, ARK Invest has increased the number of COIN stakes by 8.2% – with growth of 20.2% and 25.2% in Q4 2022 and Q1 this year, respectively. According to Cathy’s ARK.com.

Due to regulatory uncertainty, it seems that innovation is leaving the US for more favorable regimes. Unfortunate. I believe this will become an election year issue. https://t.co/PvqK9W27Fd

— Cathy Wood (@CathieDWood) June 4, 2023

While Wood is bullish on Coinbase, he believes that the SEC’s regulation from an enforcement perspective has taken a toll on cryptocurrency innovators in the US.

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The tech-savvy CEO is very bullish on Bitcoin (BTC) in the long term as well.

In a 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 situation? It would do well because it is 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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