Ark Invest Trades $31M Coinbase for Meta During Bitcoin Surge

Cathie Wood‘s Ark Invest has made significant portfolio adjustments. The firm sold Coinbase shares worth nearly $31 million. This move coincided with Bitcoin’s price surge, approaching a record high of $69,000 on March 4. Ark Invest offloaded 134,749 Coinbase shares. The sales occurred across three of its ETFs. These are the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW), and ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF). The total sale amounted to $30.88 million.

Coinbase’s stock responded positively to the sale, jumping 11.4% to $229.15. It also climbed an additional 3.8% in after-hours trading. A key factor in this uptick was Bitcoin’s price surge. Coinbase faced operational challenges during this period. An unexpected spike in traffic led to an outage. Users reported issues with account balances. CEO Brian Armstrong attributed the outage to traffic exceeding forecasts.

Strategic Sales and Acquisitions

In addition to Coinbase, Ark Invest reduced its stake in Robinhood. It sold 50,600 shares valued at about $841,478 from its ARKW and ARKF funds. This followed Robinhood’s strong fourth-quarter earnings. Analysts have noted Robinhood’s impressive end to 2023 and its optimistic outlook.

Before this, Ark Invest had sold 686,864 Robinhood shares from ARKW and ARKF. This previous transaction was worth around $11.4 million. After these sales, Robinhood’s stock price increased by more than 12% in a week. Over the past month, it saw a 50% rise. Robinhood also announced a new feature for its crypto wallet. It now supports token swaps on the Arbitrum network, adding to its Ethereum and Polygon swap capabilities.

Ark Invest also capitalized on other investment opportunities. It increased its Meta Platforms holdings by purchasing 12,498 shares for $6.23 million through ARKF. Despite this acquisition, Meta Platforms’ shares dipped slightly by 0.8% to close at $498.19.