ARK Invest is best known for actively investing in cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. This week, it bought 47,568 shares for the equivalent of $2.99 million.

ARK currently has 6.83 million shares in the companies, quite a few of which were bought in the $200-300 price range. Accordingly, the giant’s management clearly has no doubts about the company’s prospects – and that’s even in spite of the current problems with the US financial regulators.

Why are investors buying cryptocurrencies?

The negative events of 2022 in the form of the collapse of major cryptocurrency companies and the prolonged fall of the cryptocurrency market have not affected the optimism of ARK Invest’s CEO. Here’s her rejoinder to that. The quote is quoted by CryptoSlate.

Our conviction has really gone up this year. It happened because FTX, Celsius, Three AC, Voyager were all centralised. The non-transparent organisations went bust. And even centralised regulated companies like Genesis can go bankrupt.

Indeed, the problems in the companies mentioned have been caused by the actions of employees, which has nothing to do with decentralised assets. For example, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried previously used customer funds for his own needs like buying real estate and donating to officials. So the blame here is clearly not on Bitcoin and other coins.

One of Wood’s key arguments is that Bitcoin can be considered a hedge against inflation. In addition, the major cryptocurrency can play a role in diversifying the investment portfolios of institutional investors, i.e. large investors with large capital.

In general, Bitcoin’s role as an inflation-protection tool only justifies itself when an investor either invests in BTC for a long period of time, like three years or more, or manages to sell the crypto on a bullish cycle. If someone bought BTC at the beginning of 2022 and has been holding it since then, then they are taking a serious loss now. Well, Bitcoin for such an investor has not justified itself as a good investment vehicle.

Wood also talked about some of the risks associated with investing in crypto – unfavourable regulators and the potential for technological disruption in existing industries. She also stressed the importance of doing thorough research and due diligence before investing in any crypto assets. Cathy continues.

Our strategies have not been as popular over the past 18 months. They are now coming back into vogue because of concerns about inflation and interest rates. As we move into a period of no risk, investors’ time horizons are shrinking.


The problems with inflation are really hot right now. As became clear this week with a speech by US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, the Fed will continue to raise the key rate, which determines the cost of borrowing money from the central bank. In the end his speech came down to the fact that the rate will rise more aggressively and for longer than previously planned. And this means additional pressure on the global economy, which will first of all affect risky assets.


Speaking of regulatory concerns, the crypto industry has been increasingly speculating lately that Efirium and other altcoins could be recognized as securities, which would lead to stricter regulation in the US. New York Attorney General Letitia James made a statement to that effect the day before, as she filed a lawsuit against the KuCoin exchange on March 9, charging that it offered unregistered securities.

What happened immediately prompted a backlash from Deaton Law Firm partner John Deaton. That is, in general, Letitia James has openly recognised some altcoins traded on KuCoin as securities. According to Deaton, crypto investors should not let this go unnoticed – the lawyer is already collecting signatures for a class action lawsuit in the relevant Google form.

According to sources, in June 2018, former SEC director William Hinman gave a speech in which he opined that Bitcoin and Etherium are not securities. The market interpreted this as the SEC giving the green light to the two largest cryptocurrencies.

However, Hinman later stated that the speech was “meant to express his personal views” and was not a reflection of SEC policy. Thus, the question of Etherium’s status remains open.

This has clearly begun to be abused by current SEC chairman Gary Gensler. Last month he explicitly stated that altcoins should be recognised as securities. It remains to be seen how the regulator will be able to do this, but it is already clear that he is not going to ease the pressure on the industry. Therefore, crypto investors should really stand up for their rights in court, so that in the long run such statements do not collapse the market due to the prevailing uncertainty.


We believe ARK Invest's consistency deserves respect. Management continues to get involved with cryptocurrencies and blockchain companies in the middle of a bear market, which in the long run usually turns out to be a good idea. However, for such confidence in the future of digital assets, the latter are clearly worth getting to know much more.