ARK Invest, one of the issuers of spot Bitcoin U.S. exchange-traded funds (ETFs), made significant moves by selling off major cryptocurrency-related stocks for the first time in the year.
On February 14, ARK unloaded 214,068 shares of Coinbase (COIN) and 119,394 shares of Robinhood (HOOD) from its ETFs, as per trade notifications reviewed by Cointelegraph.
The trading firm specifically divested 152,600 Coinbase shares from the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), 31,459 shares from the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF), and 30,009 shares from the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW). This sale, based on Coinbase's closing price of $160.4, amounted to $34 million.
ARK's decision to sell Coinbase shares coincides with COIN breaking out of 2024 highs, surpassing $160 for the first time since the inception of the Bitcoin ETF in early January.
Coinbase stock is nearing its previous high of $173, set in November 2023, and before that, it was approximately $320 in September 2021. Additionally, ARK's ARKW fund shed 119,394 shares of Robinhood stock, marking a shift from the company's previous accumulation strategy. This sale amounted to around $1.5 million based on HOOD's closing price on Feb. 14.
The company explained that ARKW sold HOOD to adhere to Rule 12d3-1, which restricts an ETF from acquiring securities exceeding 5% of the value of its total assets. Previously, ARK had acquired 42,129 HOOD shares on February 13 for about $490,000 and 120,020 Robinhood shares on February 7 for $1.3 million.
As of February 15, ARKW’s top holdings include Coinbase, Roku (ROKU), ARK Bitcoin ETF, Block (SQ), Tesla (TSLA), and Robinhood, with Coinbase and Roku accounting for 9.5% and 7.7% of the fund's allocation, respectively. Additionally, ARK's spot Bitcoin ETF, ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB), boosted its Bitcoin exposure by purchasing an additional 1,960 BTC on February 15, exceeding its holdings on its first day of trading, which was only 1,625 BTC.
According to Bitcoin prices on CoinGecko, ARK’s spot Bitcoin ETF has allocated a total of 24,925 BTC to date, valued at $1.3 billion as of the time of writing.
