Cathie Wood Dumps $75M Coinbase Shares Amid SEC Probe

Cathie Wood’s fund management firm Ark Invest has let go of 1.4M of its Coinbase shares. News of this emerged via the firm’s daily trade data release earlier today.

Wood Offloads 1.4M Shares

Ark is Coinbase’s third-biggest shareholder with COIN holdings nearing 9 million as of late last month. A Bloomberg release revealed that with this liquidation the company conducted its first COIN dump this year. Ark sold the shares in a $75M deal involving 3 of its operational exchange-traded funds (ETF).

Ark Innovation ETF ditched roughly 1,133,495 shares of its total holdings. Whereas ETFs Ark Next Generation Internet and Ark Fintech Innovation offloaded 14,611 and 110, 218 shares respectively. All together this comes to 1,418,324 COIN shares which with yesterday’s closing price of  $52.9 made for a loss.

After a year of being consistently bullish about the exchange’s stock, Cathie seemed to adjust her stance on Tuesday. Following the dump, the investor’s company snagged up 1,765,929 shares in Shopify for $55.7 million.

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Ark Amasses $280M Loss from Sale

The Cathie Wood-led company began loading up on Coinbase shares soon after they appeared on the market in 2021. In May of that same year, Ark purchased over 500k shares and spent about $30 million in the process. COIN initially opened at $350, however, the average cost was about $254.6 as the investment firm stocked up on shares. 

Even as the shares dipped, Ark continued to add to its portfolio, with Wood even dumping Tesla stocks for COIN. However, since hitting a high of $430, Coinbase shares have lost 87% of their value. Given the decline, following the sale in question, Ark may have lost up to $280 million.

Insider Trading Allegations

Ark Invest’s COIN dump comes shortly after news of an SEC investigation into Coinbase regarding allegations of insider trading.  About a week ago, US authorities ordered the arrest of a previous Coinbase Global executive. Supposedly, the ex-employee had been leaking information about the platform’s pending token listings. 

Additionally, the SEC is looking into whether any of Coinbase’s 150 supported cryptocurrencies are unregistered securities. The exchange platform denied the accusations with the head of its legal division Pual Grewal citing a “rigorous diligence process.”

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Despite a general market slump COIN had begun showing signs of recovery before the news. The Coinbase shares hit $77.3 on Friday and have dropped 27.2% to trade at 56.27 USD at writing.