Ark Sells Nearly 15% of Coinbase Holdings, Entering at an Average Price of $250 and Exiting at $53

As of the end of June, Ark Investment Management still holds approximately 8.95 million shares of stock, making it the third-largest shareholder of Coinbase. This year, Ark Investment Management has sold Coinbase stock for the first time. Coinbase has dropped by 80% this year.

Nearly $80 Million in Cash

Bloomberg, based on its aggregation of Ark's daily trading data, reported that Ark Invest's three funds have sold about 1.41 million shares of Coinbase stock (ticker symbol: COIN), valued at around $75 million based on the closing price on July 26.

Among them, Ark's flagship innovation fund, ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), sold 1.13 million shares.

Coinbase was recently hit with setbacks as its former product manager was arrested for insider trading, and the SEC accused the company of multiple cryptocurrency assets being securities. This has added to the troubles of the U.S.-based mainstream exchange, with its stock price plummeting by 80% since the beginning of the year.

Ark's Multiple Bullish Calls on Coinbase

Cathie Wood, the founder of Ark Invest, had previously expressed optimism about Coinbase's stock price in public interviews. Since its listing on Nasdaq last year, she had been continuously buying in, treating it like a dollar-cost averaging strategy. In the face of the declining stock price, she explained Ark's actions as buying on the dips.

Ark bought 750,000 shares of COIN on its first day of listing and continued to accumulate more shares. During an interview with CNBC at the end of June, Cathie Wood admitted underestimating the stickiness of inflation but still emphasized that COIN and BLOCK Cash App were among Ark's top ten holdings.

Data platform Unusual Whales pointed out that Ark's average cost of holding COIN was $254.65, for reference only, but chose to sell at the historical low of $53.

According to Bloomberg data, Ark remains the third-largest shareholder of Coinbase, holding approximately 8.95 million shares as of the end of June. This means that this sale has reduced its holdings by about 15% and marks Ark's first sale of COIN this year.