ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood has added $19.9 million of Block shares to its ETFs, days after the $21 million Coinbase stock purchase.
Wood’s move came despite the United States Securities and Exchange Commission suing Binance and Coinbase. Coinbase’s share price slumped in the days following the SEC lawsuit, but Block shares rose sharply in the same time frame.
Wood: Sanctions Hurt the Industry
According to ARK Invest Daily Trades, 305,573 new Block shares of ARK Invest were made between June 7 and 8 with six different purchases.
240,174 of the new shares were added to the ARK Innovation (ARKK) ETF, 39,099 to the ARK Next Generation Internet (ARKW), and the remaining 26,300 to the ARK Fintech Innovation (ARKF). As for Coinbase, ARK Invest bought 419,324 shares worth approximately $21.6 million in three purchases on June 6, after the COIN dropped nearly 20 percent overnight on June 5.
While many think the lawsuits have damaged crypto firms, Wood recently told Bloomberg that the harsh accusations against Binance could eventually work in Coinbase’s favor.
According to Cathie’s ARK, which focuses on tracking company portfolios, Coinbase is currently the seventh largest company with a total of 11,440 COIN shares distributed across ARK Invest’s ARKF, ARKK and ARKW ETFs. According to its website, ARK Invest has increased the number of COIN shares by 8.2 percent since the first quarter. This increase came after the 20.2 percent and 25.2 percent increases in the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of this year.
While Cathie Wood continues to buy shares in Coinbase, she believes that the SEC’s sanctions approach is hurting cryptocurrency entrepreneurs in the US.
The tech-savvy CEO is also quite optimistic about Bitcoin in the long run. Wood explained in a Bloomberg interview that Bitcoin is built to thrive in times of market turmoil and regulatory uncertainty.