Ark Invest, Cathie Wood Raise $16 Million For New Crypto Funds: Why Most Investors Will Be Unable To Participate
Over the years, Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood has been a vocal supporter of the cryptocurrency sector. Ark Invest has included several crypto-friendly companies among big ETF holdings.
The company is rolling out new crypto investment funds, but they might not be readily available to everyone.
What Happened: Wood has one of the most aggressive price targets on Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), with the fund manager and the Ark Invest team laying out price estimates of $500,000 to $1 million over the coming years for the leading cryptocurrency.
New filings show that the Ark Crypto Revolutions Fund just raised $16 million. The fund is registered in the U.S. and the Cayman Islands. The U.S. version of the fund registered $7.28 million since starting to raise money. The Cayman Islands fund has raised $8.99 million since March 1.
Unlike many of the popular Ark Funds ETFs, the Crypto Revolutions Fund is a private placement and not available to public investors.
Both fund documents list a minimum investment for outside investors of $500,000, meaning many investors would not qualify for the funds. The funds also have the "indefinite" box checked, suggesting they are open to continual investments from those with deep enough pockets.
Related Link: How To Buy Bitcoin
Why It’s Important: Wood has been incredibly vocal in support of cryptocurrency and recently spoke out against regulators in the wake of the failure of several banks.
“While the U.S. banking system was seizing in response to bank runs threatening regional banks, Bitcoin, Ethereum and other crypto networks didn’t skip a beat,” Wood said.
“Instability in the banking system threatened stablecoins, the on-ramps to DeFi, in stark contrast to regulator rhetoric.”
The Ark website lists several narratives on cryptocurrency and Bitcoin.
“Ark believes cryptocurrencies governed by open source networks are enabling a new paradigm for monetary systems and mechanisms to store and transfer value. The investment manager believes that cryptocurrency value and market share dynamic will be ‘power law distributed,’” the Ark website says.
The flagship Ark Innovation ETF (NYSE:ARKK) is a large holder in shares of Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN). The stock is the fourth-largest holding at 6.5% of assets under management.
The Ark Innovation ETF also owns shares of crypto-friendly companies Block Inc (NYSE:SQ) and Robinhod Markets (NASDAQ:HOOD), which are the 6th and 18th largest holdings, respectively, in the ETF.
The Ark Next Generation Internet ETF (NYSE:ARKW) counts Coinbase as the largest holding at 8.3% of assets under management. The ETF has Block and Robinhood as the third and 13rd largest weightings, respectively, in the ETF.
The ETF also owns shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTC:GBTC) as the seventh-largest holding at 6.2% of assets. The ETF also owns shares of crypto-friendly Latin American digital bank Nu Holdings (NYSE:NU) at 0.5% of assets.
The Ark Fintech Innovation ETF (NYSE:ARKF) also has Coinbase as the largest holding at 12.1% of assets. Other holdings include Block, Robinhood and Nu Holdings at 10.1%, 4.7% and 1.6% of assets held, respectively.
Ark has been aggressively adding shares of Coinbase in 2023. Ark now owns 5.1% of the cryptocurrency platform.
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Composite photo via Benzinga and Shutterstock.