Cathie Wood’s ARK dumps 700K GBTC shares in one month

Cathie Wood’s investment firm, ARK Invest, has sold 700,000 shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) over the past month, even as Bitcoin (BTC $37,708) hit 17-month highs over excitement for a possible spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

The ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) sold 36,168 GBTC shares on Nov. 22, offloading a total of 697,768 GBTC since Oct. 23, according to ARK’s daily trading data seen by Cointelegraph.

ARKW offloaded roughly $1 million in GBTC as Grayscale’s trust traded around $30 on Nov. 22, closing at $30.50, per Google Finance data. United States markets closed on Nov. 23 for Thanksgiving.

GBTC daily price on Nov. 22. Source: Google Finance

ARK started selling Grayscale Bitcoin Trust shares on Oct. 23, 2023, as Bitcoin was heading toward $34,000. Before that, ARK’s previous reported GBTC transaction was in November 2022, when the firm sold 450,272 GBTC shares.

After selling nearly 700,000 GBTC shares over the past month, ARK’s ARKW still holds $131.8 million worth of GBTC, or more than 4.3 million GBTC shares. As of Nov. 24, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust accounts for 9.2% of ARKW’s portfolio, ranked third after Coinbase and Roku, according to the official ARKW data.

The ARK Next Generation Internet ETF’s top three holdings by weight. Source: ARK

The ARK ETF that offloaded the funds is up over 68% year-to-date compared to the over-271% posted by Grayscale’s trust, per Google Finance data.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is up 125% YTD and neared $38,000 on Nov. 16, the highest since May 2022, per Cointelegraph Markets Pro.