Ark Invest Bitmine sale comes as fund adds Coinbase and Circle

Ark Invest’s Bitmine sale led a fresh round of crypto-stock trimming by Cathie Wood’s firm on Wednesday, even as the manager has recently been adding exposure to Coinbase and Circle. For retail investors, the trades show Ark shifting around crypto-linked bets during a weaker stretch for both digital assets and related equities.

According to Ark Invest’s daily trading disclosure, the firm sold about $4.4 million of shares across Bitmine Immersion Technologies, Robinhood, Block and Bullish. Bitmine, an Ethereum treasury company, made up the largest piece of the sale.

Ark sold 120,665 Bitmine shares valued at roughly $2 million, according to the disclosure. It also sold 13,403 Block shares worth about $1.1 million, 12,561 Robinhood shares worth about $1.1 million and 11,314 Bullish shares valued at around $247,000.

The selling came on a down day for those names. Bitmine ended Wednesday lower by 5.6%, and Robinhood, Block and Bullish also closed in negative territory.

What did Ark Invest sell and buy?

Ark’s Wednesday trades were not only sales. The firm also bought about $14.5 million of SpaceX shares across several of its exchange-traded funds, according to its trading disclosure. An exchange-traded fund, or ETF, is a fund that trades like a stock and can hold a basket of investments; here is a plain-English guide to what an ETF is.

Ark had also been buying other crypto-related stocks in the days before the Bitmine trim. Over the previous three trading days, the firm purchased roughly $43.5 million of Coinbase and Circle shares, including about $18.6 million of Coinbase stock and $12.9 million of Circle stock, according to the disclosed trading activity.

Coinbase runs a major U.S. crypto exchange. Circle is tied to USDC, a dollar-linked stablecoin. A stablecoin is a digital token designed to track the value of another asset, often the U.S. dollar.

The mix of buying and selling matters because Ark’s trades are closely watched by many individual investors. The firm is known for concentrated bets on disruptive technology companies, and crypto-adjacent stocks have become a visible part of that theme.

Why are crypto-linked stocks under pressure?

The latest trades arrived as crypto equities have been weakening alongside digital asset prices, according to Decrypt. That connection can happen because companies such as exchanges, trading apps and crypto treasury firms often depend on investor appetite for digital assets, transaction activity or the market value of the tokens they hold.

Robinhood’s latest earnings offered one example of that pressure. The company reported second-quarter results this week that beat Wall Street expectations, but said revenue from its crypto business dropped nearly 40% from a year earlier as trading activity slowed.

Ark’s disclosure does not explain the firm’s reasoning for each trade. The filings show what changed in the portfolios, while the market backdrop helps explain why investors are watching the moves closely.

This story draws on original reporting from Decrypt.