Wood’s Ark Investment Management has offloaded about 1.5 million shares of Circle over four recent trading sessions, worth roughly $333 million, based on back-of-the envelope math calculated by Bloomberg from the firm’s daily trading disclosures.
The sale comes just weeks after three of Wood’s exchange-traded funds bought
The flagship ARK Innovation ETF, with $6.5 billion in assets, sold 1.2 million shares. ARK Next Generation Internet ETF and ARK Fintech Innovation ETF followed by also selling shares. Wood’s firm as a whole remains the eighth-largest holder of Circle, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
“Profit-taking is a natural part of Ark’s strategy,” said Todd Sohn, senior ETF analyst at Strategas Research. “The more important questions and considerations would come if they completely sold out of the name; that would raise the risk of Nvidia redux.”
A spokesperson for Ark did not respond to a request for comment.
Ark’s unwinding of Circle holdings comes after shares of the company behind USDC, the second-largest stablecoin by market share, rallied more than 600% since it started trading earlier this month — marking the most high-profile cryptocurrency-related debut since Coinbase Global’s direct listing in 2021.
New York-based Circle is now valued at about $50 billion, putting it well within the league of heavyweights like Coinbase and Robinhood Markets. Circle shares fell as much as 16% on Tuesday.
“Ark doubled their investment in less than a month,” said Athanasios Psarofagis, ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “It’s not unusual for them to sell while the stock runs up.”
In 2023, Wood made headlines for closing out ARKK’s position in Nvidia just as the stock was soaring, fueled by a global bull run driven by optimism over artificial intelligence.
ARKK’s tech holdings such as Tesla and Roblox have rebounded from tariff-volatility induced lows alongside the broader stock market as President Donald Trump walked back some of his most