ARK Invest, a technology and fintech fund led by Katie Wood, bought $5 million in Coinbase shares.
This is the investment fund’s fourth recent purchase as the firm’s ARK Fintech Innovation ETF ( ARKF ) adds 158,000 shares to its balance sheet. Wood’s most recent purchase came in mid-December, when he added $3.2 million in stock to his balance sheet.
Shares of Coinbase closed at $34.78 in New York on Thursday, up roughly 7%. The exchange’s shares have been hit hard by the crypto bear market, falling 86% this year. COIN has underperformed both Bitcoin and Ether, with the world’s largest digital asset down 65% year-to-date and the Ethereum protocol’s namesake token down 66%.
In late November, Wood continued to demonstrate his belief in Bitcoin by purchasing 176,945 shares of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) ($1.5 million). GBTC shares are currently trading at a 48% discount to Bitcoin’s net asset value.
Grayscale is owned by Digital Currency Group, which is also the parent company of CoinDesk.
Wood also bought 22,514 shares of Tesla ( TSLA ) stock for ARK’s Innovation ETF ( ARKK ), worth about $2.74 million, a Dec. 30 trading report email shows. TSLA is down about 69% this year as investors worry that high inflation and a possible recession will reduce demand for expensive electric vehicles.
