Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global (COIN 3.12%) had its highly anticipated initial public offering yesterday, and standing ready was ARK Invest fund manager Cathie Wood, who bought nearly 750,000 shares for three of her exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Coinbase debuted on the Nasdaq exchange at $381 per share, but quickly hit a high of just under $430, before closing the day at around $328. That closing price gives Wood a $248 million stake in the crypto exchange.
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In her daily letters to her ETF investors describing what was bought and sold on any particular day by a fund, Wood revealed her ARK Innovation (ARKK 2.68%), ARK Fintech Innovation (ARKF 3.04%), and ARK Next Generation Internet (ARKW 2.69%) ETFs bought a combined total of 749,205 shares.
By far the largest purchaser was the ARK Innovation ETF, which bought 68% of Wood's total, or 512,535 shares, followed by over 147,000 shares for Next Generation, and the remainder by Fintech Innovation.
The Next Generation ETF also owns 7.79 million shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC -0.05%), accounting for over 5% of the fund's total portfolio. You can't buy Bitcoin (BTC 0.40%) from Grayscale, a fund that buys the tokens; you only get indirect exposure to the cryptocurrency. From Coinbase, however, you can buy cryptocurrency.
The crypto exchange raised nearly $3 billion in Wednesday's IPO and is seen as a stabilizing force for Bitcoin, which has more than doubled in 2021 so far and is up almost 850% over the past year. Although there is growing interest in cryptocurrencies as a long-term investment, they remain a mystery to large swaths of the public. A handy guide to understanding them helps bridge that knowledge gap.
