ARK Sells $99.5M Tesla Shares And Buys Another $64M Coinbase Shares

The ARK funds of Cathie Wood have made some very high-profile purchasing and selling on Friday. The firm’s daily trade summary highlighted that it had sold shares within Tesla, the electric car maker, and bought shares within Coinbase Global Inc, the heavyweight US crypto exchange.

Less Tesla, More Coinbase

The exact details of the purchase are as follows: Friday saw the sale of $99.5 million in Tesla shares, 134,241 in total, during the close of Friday. Even with such a large-scale sale of the electric car marker, it still stands as the biggest position by value when looking at Ark’s major funds. On that same day, Ark bought close to $53 million in Coinbase shares, 187,078 to be exact. Coinbase itself had seen its IPO launch on Nasdaq earlier this week. The company bought these shares at the closing price of that day, set at $342.

These funds were subsequently added to the Next Generation ETF, Ark Innovation Fund, and the Fintech Innovation ETF of ARK’s flagship products.

Going Big On Coinbase

It should be noted that this isn’t the first time ARK had bought Coinbase shares. On Wednesday, the firm bought a staggering 749,205 shares, and had purchased 341,186 shares on Thursday, as well.

Another important thing to make note of is that the sold Tesla shares came from both its Next Generation Internet ETF as well as its flagship fund.

Less Risks Demanded For Crypto Exposure

Through this large holding of Coinbase shares, ARK has exposed itself indirectly to cryptocurrencies at large to a far greater degree. This comes alongside the company making its big bets with Tesla, which itself is invested in Bitcoin. Another key statement from Tesla is that it would accept payments in cryptocurrencies for its cards.

Wood, which is a celebrity fund manager in its own right, had seen his prominence among retail investors rise up last year, attracting a steady cash supply for her various red-hot funds in the process.

Time will tell how good this indirect exposure would be for the crypto space, but it’s clear that the big investors of the world are quite keen on gaining exposure to crypto, but aren’t quite as keen to gain direct exposure to it. Cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile by their very nature, and it makes sense that the more calm and collected investor would opt to gain less benefit, but also less detriment, from the rampant price swings that occur within the crypto space.