The tech-oriented investment manager, ARK Invest, is considered to be one of the largest holders of Coinbase (COIN) shares.
The company owns over 10.5 million shares, and for a long time, the firm was happy to keep piling up shares and continue purchasing more.
However, as of last week, the firm started selling Coinbase shares, so far dumping them on two occasions.
ARK Invest profits from the recent Coinbase rally
ARK first sold a portion of its shares on July 11th — last Tuesday. It received $12 million in exchange, following the stock’s rally to a one-year high at around $89. It then made another sale on July 14th, selling another $50.5 million to cash in on the still ongoing rally, bringing Coinbase’s share to $107.
ARK sold more than 480,000 COIN shares across three different funds.
With another 10.5 million shares, the company remains one of Coinbase’s largest shareholders out there.
As for the surge that started, it all came after the firm entered into several surveillance-sharing agreements, including the one with BlackRock.
Coinbase shares rose following surveillance-sharing agreements
BlackRock pursued the agreement after the US SEC rejected its Bitcoin ETF proposal, noting that there was an issue with the firm’s plan involving surveillance.
BlackRock selected Coinbase as a partner to remedy the problem, and it then re-filed its Bitcoin spot ETF.
Before this, Coinbase’s shares were unstable due to the SEC’s lawsuit against the exchange on June 5th.
The partnership with BlackRock helped the COIN shares solidify themselves, and start a rally.
Then, ARK Invest used the rally to profit by selling off the shares, likely in fear of them crashing again if the SEC rejects BlackRock’s proposal for the second time.
Several other firms decided to enter into a similar surveillance-sharing agreement with Coinbase and refile their own ETFs, which were also rejected by the SEC, mostly for the same reason as BlackRock.
Will the US finally get its own Bitcoin ETF?
Many are hopeful that the US SEC will finally approve at least one Bitcoin spot ETF proposal, since all issues that the SEC had pointed out in the past have been resolved.
With the Coinbase partnerships, even the newest problem that the regulator had identified has been fixed.
With that being the case, the SEC doesn’t have any other clear reason to reject the proposals, which is why it agreed to consider BlackRock’s re-filing.
As for ARK Invest, it is unclear whether the firm plans to continue selling its Coinbase shares or if the two sales so far will be the last of them in the foreseeable future.
