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A number of ARK funds bought Coinbase Global stock on its first day of trading.
Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
ARK Investment Management, led by widely followed portfolio manager and CEO
Cathie Wood,
bought $246 million worth of shares in the newly listed cryptocurrency exchange
Coinbase
Global on Wednesday.
According to data released by ARK, the firm purchased nearly 750,000 Coinbase shares (ticker: COIN) for three of its actively managed exchange-traded funds: The
ARK Innovation ETF
(ARKK),
ARK Next Generation Internet ETF
(ARKW), and
ARK Fintech Innovation ETF
(ARKF). All three funds rose in Thursday trading.
ARK’s bet on Coinbase comes as no surprise. Wood has been a fervent advocate for Bitcoin; the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF directly owns the digital currency through a 5.7% position in the
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust
(GBTC). In a 2019 interview with Barron’s, Wood had predicted Bitcoin’s total network value to reach $2 trillion from just $175 billion at that time. Today, it’s at nearly $1.2 trillion. Wood has since updated her forecast for the cryptocurrency’s price to a whopping $500,000, about eight times higher than today’s level.
It’s unclear at what price the ARK ETFs have bought the Coinbase shares. The stock saw significant price swings on Wednesday. At one point, Coinbase stock reached as high as $429.54 per share—72% higher than its $250 reference price set by Nasdaq. The $250 reference price is the requirement for the stock to begin trading, not a direct indicator of the company’s potential market capitalization. Coinbase stock closed at $328.28 on Wednesday, and went up yet another 1% in Thursday trading.
“The first choppy day came as a warning that traditional investors are not necessarily convinced that the coin trading business could remain as lucrative as now in the long-run, especially if banks and other financial institutions, who are preparing to offer digital wallets, will likely eat into Coinbase and other existing crypto-exchanges’ decent margins and revenues,” wrote Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote in a Wednesday note.
Still, in the absence of other players in the immediate future, Ozkardeskaya says Coinbase is a good way to take advantage of the crypto mania—without taking a side. Predictions for Bitcoin’s future price have ranged widely. “We’ve not stopped seeing volatility in this market. And high volatility means lucrative business for those who allow these transactions to happen,” the analyst wrote.
Write to Evie Liu at evie.liu@barrons.com