ARK Invest CEO Cathy Wood didn’t appear to be affected by the latest crypto-related regulatory action, as she bought another $19.9 million worth of shares from Block Inc. Immediately after buying $21 million in Coinbase shares.
Wood’s latest buying spree comes despite the US Securities and Exchange Commission this week suing two industry trading heavyweights, Binance and Coinbase, for offering what the regulator considers unregistered securities, among other things.
Coinbase’s stock price plunged in the days following the SEC lawsuit, however, which saw Block Inc. sharply increased over the same time period.
305,573 new Block shares at ARK Invest came via six buys between June 7 and 8, which now represents ARK’s fourth largest stake at 4.81%, according For daily ARK Invest trades.
Of the new shares, 240,174 shares were added to the ARK Innovation (ARKK) ETF, 39,099 shares to the ARK Next Generation Internet (ARKW) and the remaining 26,300 shares to the ARK Fintech Innovation (ARKF).
For Coinbase, ARK Invest bought 419,324 shares — worth $21.6 million — via three purchases on June 6, which came in the midst of the coin’s drop of nearly 20% overnight on June 5.
While many consider the lawsuits to have hurt crypto companies, Wood recently Tell Bloomberg believes that the harsher accusations against Binance may eventually work in Coinbase’s favor:
“We have Binance under increasing regulatory scrutiny for more criminal activities, fraud being one of them, and so we have competition for Coinbase disappearing, so that’s a good thing in the long run for Coinbase.”
Coinbase is now the seventh largest holding of ARK Invest at 4.39%, with a total of 11,440 COIN shares spread across ARKF, ARKK, and ARKW ETFs, according to Cathie’s ARK, a website dedicated to tracking her portfolio.
Since the first quarter, ARK Invest has increased the number of COIN shares by 8.2% – which comes on the back of a 20.2% and 25.2% increase in the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of this year, according to the site.
Due to regulatory uncertainty, innovation seems to be leaving the US for friendlier regimes. regrettable. I think it will become an election issue. https://t.co/PvqK9W27Fd
– Cathy Wood (@CathieDWood) June 4, 2023
While Wood is increasingly bullish on Coinbase, she believes that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations through enforcement approach have affected cryptocurrency innovators in the US.
Related: Bitcoin and Ether are ‘like gold’ says Cathy Wood, but Ray Dalio is skeptical
The tech savvy CEO is very bullish on Bitcoin (BTC) in the long term as well.
In the Bloomberg interview, Wood explained that Bitcoin was built to thrive in times of market turmoil and regulatory uncertainty:
“Why does Bitcoin do so well in this circumstance? It will 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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