Star Investor Cathie Woods’ Ark Invest Dumps 1.4M Coinbase Shares

Cathie Wood, one of the strongest institutional backers of American publicly traded digital currency trading platform, Coinbase Global Inc seems to be losing faith in the company. A recent filing showed that Ark Invest, Cathie Wood’s renowned investment vehicle has sold over 1.4 million shares of Coinbase shares.

As of the closing share price of Coinbase on Tuesday at $52.93, the selloff is worth as much as $75 million, a massive loss when compared to more than $300 the shares were trading at when it went public back in April last year.

According to the filing, the Coinbase shares were sold across the flagship Ark Innovation ETF, the fintech innovation, and next-generation internet ETFs, all of having a certain level of exposure to Coinbase shares. The bulk of the COIN shares offloaded was from the Ark Innovation ETF, of which a total of 1.1 million shares were sold off.

Cathie Wood’s investment vehicles acquired as much as 4 million Coinbase shares when the company went public via a direct listing in April. The current selloff has showcased how much of a strain the investment vehicle is experiencing as the world economy has been on a downward spiral for the past few months.

While Ark Invest has been dumping Coinbase shares, it has also offloaded Robinhood Markets Inc’s shares, with over $500,000 worth sold on Tuesday at the closing price of $8.43. The targeted selloffs can be described as an attempt to reduce exposure to stocks with mild or full reference to digital currencies.

Why Coinbase Shares Are Underperforming

There are currently many theses that are being postulated as to why Coinbase shares and the company’s business performance are on the downtrend at this time.

First, American regulatory woes are burdensome and a few days ago, the exchange came under the cross-hairs of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with respect to listing coins and tokens that are classified as securities.

The exchange has also been conservative this crypto winter as it sent off 18% of its global workforce. Analysts have posited that, unlike FTX and Binance which have been standing strong in this era, Coinbase exchange has no utility token or a blockchain ecosystem, and so, has little to offer across the board.