How Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest has been cashing in on Bitcoin’s rally

• ARK Invest offloaded Coinbase, GBTC shares worth $5.8 million.
• The Bitcoin rally was triggered by enthusiasm around BlackRock and GBTC moving closer to launching their BTC ETFs.

Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest is in the news again due to its recent trades worth millions of dollars. A Twitter handle monitoring ARK’s daily trades highlighted these transactions.

Cathie Wood and Ark Invest’s trade activity from today 10/23 pic.twitter.com/3SilCpHQFG

— Ark Invest Daily (@ArkkDaily) October 24, 2023

On 24 October, ARK Invest offloaded 42,613 shares of the crypto exchange Coinbase [COIN] worth $3.3 million through ARK Next Generation Internet ETF and ARK Fintech Innovation ETF. The share was priced at $77.21 at closing time.

Source: CNBC

Last month, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong confirmed his platform was implementing Bitcoin’s [BTC] Lightning Network payment protocol. Cathie Wood applauded the move.

Bitcoin is the world’s digital monetary system, and Lightning is Bitcoin’s payments layer. Coinbase’s integration with Lightning will give its 100 million users an on-ramp to faster and cheaper bitcoin transactions. Hats off to Coinbase! https://t.co/zJ5HqHvyrz

— Cathie Wood (@CathieDWood) September 13, 2023

ARK also offloaded 100,739 shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust [GBTC] worth $2.5 million through ARK Next Generation Internet ETF. The share was priced at $24.70 at closing time.

Source: CNBC

Meanwhile, Robinhood Markets, Inc. [HOOD] caught the attention of ARK as the asset manager bought 259,628 HOOD shares worth $2.38 million. HOOD was priced at $9.17 at closing time.

Source: CNBC

Enthusiasm around Bitcoin ETFs spurs bull run

ARK Invest executed these transactions as Bitcoin’s price nearly touched $35k on 24 October.

Source: BTC/USD, TradingView

The market enthusiasm around two Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) led to the recent rally.

The first case related to the New York-based global investment giant, BlackRock. Eric Balchunas, ETF analyst at Bloomberg, notified the crypto community that the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) had listed Blackrock’s iShares spot Bitcoin ETF.

Its ticker will be IBTC, he added.

The iShares Bitcoin Trust has been listed on the DTCC (Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, which clears NASDAQ trades). And the ticker will be $IBTC. Again all part of the process of bringing ETF to market.. h/t @martypartymusic pic.twitter.com/8PQP3h2yW0

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) October 23, 2023

The second case is related to Grayscale Investments. Notably, Grayscale’s case against the US Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) reached its conclusion on the same day.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals finally delivered its verdict, forcing SEC to scrap its rejection on the conversion of GBTC to a spot Bitcoin ETF.

Though the regulator can still reject the application after another review, Grayscale has already announced it will take the matter to court once again.

Notably, ARK is among an array of applicants waiting for the SEC to approve its spot Bitcoin ETF. Two weeks earlier, it submitted an amended application, furnishing additional details.

ARK had first filed for a spot Bitcoin ETF in 2021. Since then, the SEC has rejected all of its applications.