Cathie Wood’s ARK dumps 800K Grayscale Bitcoin Trust shares

ARK Invest, one of the applicants for a spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States, has continued to dump its holdings of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) stock with the sale of yet another significant batch of shares.

On Dec. 18, ARK sold 809,441 GBTC from its ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW), according to a trade notification seen by Cointelegraph. Based on the closing share price of $34.5, the sale is worth $27.9 million, according to data from TradingView.

This latest divestment further reduces ARK’s exposure to the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, with GBTC inching closer to dropping out of the list of ARKW’s top three holdings.

As of Dec. 18, GBTC still ranks as the third-largest asset in the ARKW portfolio, accounting for 6.84% of total assets with a market value of $117 billion. GBTC sits below crypto exchange Coinbase and streaming company Roku, accounting for 11% and 8% of ARKW’s total assets, respectively.

While shedding GBTC, ARK has continued accumulating shares of Block, the financial payment processor co-founded by Twitter (now X) co-founder Jack Dorsey.

Related: BlackRock, ARK revise Bitcoin ETF plans along SEC’s cash-only model

On Dec. 18, ARKW allocated another 347,692 Block shares worth $25.7 million at the closing share price. Amid aggressive buying, Block stock has been edging closer to GBTC on the top four list, reaching a weight of 6.83% of ARKW’s total assets with a market value of $116.9 billion.

On Dec. 7, Block launched its own self-custody Bitcoin wallet called Bitkey. The wallet is available as a mobile application or hardware storage and will be accessible in over 95 countries. The first global partners for Bitkey include Coinbase and Cash App.

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