CEO of ARK Invest Clarifies Coinbase Stock Selloff
After selling more than 1.4 million shares of Coinbase Global (COIN) last Tuesday, the CEO of ARK Invest, Cathie Wood, has cited the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) ongoing probe into Coinbase's alleged listing of unregistered securities.
Cathie says the SEC’s claims led to an uncomfortable amount of regulatory “uncertainty” throughout the crypto industry, according to Bloomberg.
According to the company website, the 1.4 million shares worth over $75million were sold on July 26th, with the corporation still holding over $451 million shares in Coinbase.
Ark, Coinbase's third largest investor, held about 8.95 million shares at the end of June. The corp has been purchasing shares in the crypto exchange since it debuted on the Nasdaq in April of 2021, with its last major purchase of $30 million coming back in May.
The CEO claims the buying spree came due to the price of Shopify's shares dropping significantly, with Coinbase seeming like a good alternative with no real insight on how Coinbase would handle regulation.
Speaking with Bloomberg, Wood said she had concerns over how many tokens would have to be delisted in the case of security classification, with the company's business model being impacted if this were to happen.
Cathie stated that the arrest of a former Coinbase employee who was accused of insider trading, as it was discovered he was giving his brother the list of tokens to be added to the exchange, did not influence ARKs selloff of COIN stock.
Since the beginning of the year, Coinbase stock has been down 64.59% but has surged 47% over the two weeks due to last week's announcement of a partnership between BlackRock and Coinbase.
With Coinbase providing cryptocurrency trading for Blackrocks's institutional investor platform Alladin.
Clarification from the CEO of ARK should calm some COIN holder's nerves, especially after the recent Blackrock partnership, which some say will lead to the most significant price surge in Bitcoin price history.