Cathie Wood’s ARK buys Coinbase shares worth $17.8 million

On Mar 24, 2023

Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest bought Coinbase shares worth $17.88 million as the exchange received SEC’s Wells notice.
Recently, ARK Invest sold Coinbase shares worth $13.5 million.

Cathie Wood’s investment firm, ARK Invest, bought 268,928 Coinbase [BASE] shares worth $17.88 million on 24 March through its ARKK Innovation and ARKW Next Generation Internet exchange-traded funds.

Cathie Wood and Ark Invest’s trade activity from today 3/23 pic.twitter.com/yyubxTegZj
— Ark Invest Daily (@ArkkDaily) March 24, 2023

Only two days ago, on 22 March, ARK Invest had sold 160,887 Coinbase shares worth $13.5 million. In 2023, this was the first time any of ARK Invest’s ETFs sold Coinbase shares.

Soon after this transaction, the crypto exchange said that it has received a Wells notice from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (U.S. SEC) recommending the regulator to take enforcement action.

A Wells Notice indicated that the SEC has done an investigation and believes that the evidence gathered could warrant enforcement action. It doesn’t guarantee that enforcement action will take place. Coinbase needs to notify the SEC by 29 March whether it intends to contest the enforcement action.

230,599 of the bought shares went to the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) while 38,329 of these shares went to the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW).

Shares go for a toss following SEC’s notice

Coinbase’s share price has not recovered since it disclosed that it had received a Wells notice warning of possible SEC enforcement action, resulting in a 21% drop in COIN shares. Its shares fell to a low of $64.27 after trading began on 23 March, and are now trading at $66.30.

Source: Yahoo Finance

Earlier, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong also sold shares in his company during 17-20 March.

On 23 March, Armstrong stated that the company would become more politically involved. Moreover, it would encourage its US-based users to vote for “pro-crypto candidates.”

Today at 1pm PT! Join @brian_armstrong, @iampaulgrewal, @faryarshirzad and @chrislehane for a conversation about the recent SEC decision to enforce rules that don’t exist. If the SEC wants to throw the rulebook at crypto, they should have a rulebook.https://t.co/7kgshcrmBy
— Coinbase (@coinbase) March 23, 2023

According to SEC filings, Coinbase executives and insiders entered into 10B5-1 selling plans months in advance, and this series of sales was made in accordance with a trading plan adopted on 16 August 2022.

Coinbase has repeatedly stated that its staking products are fundamentally different from Kraken. Inasmuch, it could not be labelled as securities universally.