Investment firm ARK has sold 100,739 Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) shares held by the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF as Bitcoin price surges to $35K.
On October 23, ARK, managed by Bitcoin investment veteran Cathie Wood, sold 100,739 GBTC shares from its ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) for $2.5 million. GBTC reached $24.7 for the first time since May 2022, marking a period of multiple-month highs.Â
According to data from TradingView, GBTC has increased by more than 200% since the beginning of the year and is up nearly 30% over the past 30 days.
This is the first officially reported GBTC transaction by ARK since November 2022, when the company added 450,272 GBTC shares worth $4.5 million to ARKW.
The most recent GBTC sale represents approximately 2% of the total GBTC value in ARKW’s portfolio or $122.6 million as of October 23. GBTC is the largest asset held by ARKW, accounting for 10.4% of the product’s exposure, followed by Coinbase and Roku’s shares, which account for 9% and 7.4% of the product’s exposure, respectively.
According to Bitcoin advocate Samson Mow, ARK’s most recent GBTC sale may be related to the company’s pending judgment from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on its application to list a Bitcoin-based ETF.
A few days after ARK amended its spot Bitcoin ETF filing on October 11, Grayscale submitted a new BTC ETF registration statement to the SEC on October 19.
“It makes sense for ARK to sell GBTC now, as the discount is decreasing and they are filing for their ETF,” Mow told Cointelegraph.
Some online traders have speculated that if ARK receives approval for a spot Bitcoin ETF, it would likely place its ETF as the first holding in ARKW and sell GBTC.
ARK also sold 32,158 Coinbase shares from ARKW and 10,455 Coinbase shares from its ARK Fintech Innovation fund for $3.4 million, in addition to selling GBTC. On October 23, the investment firm added 32,158 Robinhood shares worth $300,000 to its ARKW holdings.
