Cathie Wood's ARK ignores Silvergate, buys Coinbase stock for 6th straight month

Bitcoin (BTC) exchange Coinbase has remained a firm “buy” for ARK Invest throughout its recent price drop.

The latest data shows ARK continuing to buy COIN shares despite bankruptcy concerns over Silvergate bank, a major Coinbase partner.

ARK ETF keeps topping up on Coinbase stock

In the latest demonstration of its fearless approach to the crypto space, ARK purchased another 47,568 shares of Coinbase on March 7.

These join the around 6 million shares already held in ARK’s ARKK exchange-traded fund (ETF) at the start of the month, and are already its third purchase of the week.

COIN itself, however, has been under pressure since the start of February, dropping from local highs of $87.50 to current levels of $61.69 — a decrease of almost 30% in just over a month, according to data from TradingView.

While Silvergate precipitated fresh scrutiny when it comes to crypto exchanges in particular, events have appeared not to faze ARK and CEO Cathie Wood, known for bucking the trend and increasing exposure to assets such as COIN even during the 2022 bear market.

In a recent edition of its weekly newsletter released on Feb. 27, ARK hinted at its rationale, voicing excitement at Coinbase announcing its Ethereum Layer-2 network, Base.

“In our view, Coinbase’s decision to build and integrate its services into a decentralized crypto infrastructure highlights its deep alignment with the fair, transparent, and accessible financial services that public blockchains aim to offer,” it wrote.

“While it will not derive transaction revenue from Base at launch, Coinbase is likely to benefit financially if its Wallet serves as a trusted on-ramp and access point to applications on the network as it scales.”

The buy-ins have come at a price — the firm’s cost basis is currently at $254 per share, far in excess of their current value.

GBTC inches higher as Bitcoin ETF battle hits court

Also benefiting this week is the largest Bitcoin institutional investment vehicle, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).

Related: GBTC approval could return a ‘couple billion dollars’ to investors: Grayscale CEO

Amid crunchtime for owner Grayscale in its long running battle to convert and launch GBTC as an ETF in the United States, the Trust saw a modest uptick in value as the week began.

A court is currently deciding on whether U.S. regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has the right to continue denying the launch of what would be the market’s first Bitcoin spot price ETF.

GBTC remains near a record discount to the Bitcoin spot price, with its shares trading at an implied price nearly 50% lower than BTC/USD, per data from monitoring resource Coinglass.

As ever with the ETF narrative, meanwhile, criticism remained.

“GBTC spot ETF approval would dump the price of BTC and pump the ETF,” statistician Willy Woo argued on March 8.

“The pent up sell pressure on GBTC which accumulated during the bear market (as reflected in the GBTC discount) would be released onto the open market.”

ARK meanwhile owns 5.53 million GBTC shares, having last increased exposure in November 2022, immediately after the FTX debacle broke. In January, it reduced its holdings by 500,000 shares.

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