Cathie Wood Trims Another $49.4M From Coinbase Stake And Buys More Square Shares Amid Crypto Enthusiasm

Cathie Wood’s money managing firm Ark Invest further lowered its exposure in Coinbase Global Inc COIN on Thursday but topped up more shares in Square Inc SQ, a day after the digital payments firm announced a corporate name change for its company and the cryptocurrency unit.

Ark Invest sold 173,387 shares — estimated to be worth $49.36 million based on the latest closing price — in Coinbase. Coinbase shares closed 3.32% lower at $284.71 a share on Thursday. The stock has plummeted 17.33% in the past month. 

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong reminded investors three weeks ago at the earnings call conference that the company is focused on long-term growth instead of a quarter-to-quarter investment as it grows the cryptocurrency economy.

Ark Invest has been lowering exposure in Coinbase since Oct. 12, after months of piling up shares in the U.S. cryptocurrency exchange’s stock following its direct listing on NASDAQ in April this year.

See Also: Cathie Wood Trims $5M In Coinbase And Loads Up On This Stock

Last month, the company said that Bitcoin BTC/USD was 19% of trading volume in the third quarter, compared to 24% in the second quarter. Ethereum ETH/USD was 22% of trading volume in the third quarter, compared to 26% in the second quarter.

Ark Invest sold the COIN shares via the Ark Innovation ETF ARKK. It also owns the stock via the Ark Fintech Innovation ETF ARKF and the Ark Next Generation Internet ETF ARKW. 

The popular management firm still held 5.19 million shares — worth $1.47 billion — in Coinbase via the three ETFs ahead of Thursday’s trades.

Ark Invest, however, swept up 281,406 shares — estimated to be worth $54.07 million — in the Jack Dorsey-led Square a day after the financial services and digital payments company said it is changing its corporate name to Block, effective Dec. 10. Besides changing the company name, Square is also changing the name of its cryptocurrency unit from Square Crypto to Spiral.

See Also: It’s Hip To Be... Block? Square Is Changing Its Name

The company said block is used for many meanings, including building blocks, communities coming together at the block, a blockchain, code section, and obstacles to overcome.

The announcement by Square comes days after Dorsey stepped down as the CEO of social media platform Twitter Inc TWTR. 

Ark Invest owned 5.32 million shares — worth about $1.03 billion — in Square, ahead of Thursday’s trades.

Price Action: Square shares traded 0.35% lower at $191.48 premarket on the last check Friday.

Photo by andre-francois-mckenzie via unsplash