By
Steve Muchoki
April 25th, 2024
ARK’s recent offloading of Coinbase shares stands out as one of its significant divestments in 2024. Prior to Thursday’s sale, ARK sold off 270,365 shares of Coinbase on March 11.
Asset management giant Ark Invest has recently engaged in profit-taking from its massive holdings of Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ: COIN) shares as the stock price rallied all the way to $270 on Thursday, March 21. Coinbase has been one of the top-performing companies on Wall Street with one-year gains at a staggering 240%. Since the beginning of 2024, the COIN stock has already given a run-up of 67%.
On March 21, ARK divested 199,526 Coinbase shares from its ETFs. The investment firm, led by Cathie Wood, sold 133,533 shares from the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), valued at approximately $35 million based on Coinbase’s closing price of $262 on March 21, according to TradingView data.
Additionally, ARK disposed of 59,215 shares from the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) and 6,778 shares from the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF). The total proceeds from the sale amounted to $52.3 million at the closing price on March 21.
As said, the recent sale of COIN stock by ARK Invest coincides with stable growth in Coinbase stock, surpassing $270 for the first time since December 2021. ARK’s recent sale of Coinbase shares represents one of its most notable divestments in 2024. The previous significant sale occurred on March 11, when ARK offloaded 270,365 Coinbase shares.
On February 16, ARK conducted its largest sale of Coinbase shares in 2024, selling 499,149 COIN shares from its three ETFs. At that time, Coinbase shares were trading approximately 37% lower than the current price, around $190, as per data from TradingView.
ARK Invest has been offloading the COIN stock from its holdings actively throughout 2023 and now in 2024. It was one of the biggest purchasers of Coinbase shares after its listing back in 2021.
Ark Invest Offloads Other Crypto Firms
In addition to Coinbase, ARK has actively been offloading shares of Block, a fintech company focused on Bitcoin and founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. On Thursday, March 21, ARK sold another 188,519 Block shares from its ARKK fund, amounting to $15.8 million in proceeds.
Furthermore, ARK divested 93,002 Robinhood shares valued at approximately $2 million from the ARKW ETF, as the fund’s holding of Robinhood stock neared 5% of the total portfolio weight. This move was made to adhere to Rule 12d3-1, which limits ETFs from acquiring more than 5% of their assets in securities from certain entities.
ARK has been aligning its sales of Robinhood shares with Rule 12d3-1 compliance for some time. Notably, on March 14, the firm also sold 583,563 Robinhood shares from the ARKK fund. However, Ark Invest didn’t mention compliance with Rule 12d3-1 as a reason for the sale.