Giant bitcoin whale ARK has purchased $2.5 million in Coinbase shares as COIN continues its rally.
Bitcoin whale buys
Cathie Wood’s crypto conviction continues as giant bitcoin whale ARK buys another Coinbase (COIN) on Thursday. Coinbase is the 12th largest holding of the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), after CRISPR Therapeutics and game engine developer Unity, with 3.87% of the fund’s weight. Overall, the average cost of ARKK for COIN is $254.65.
cryptocoin.com As we mentioned, COIN closed Thursday at $47.55, up 8.6%, or 23% over the past month. Analysts estimate the average price target to be $61.46, based on data compiled by FactSet. Barclays analyst Benjamin Budish said in a recent note that “next year will likely continue to be challenging” for Coinbase, but that “rising rates will be a material tailwind”. Recently, Coinbase announced a major expansion in its European operations as a pillar of growth for 2023.
Opportunity to capitalize on disruptive innovation is needed
The ARK Invest CEO said market uncertainty requires an opportunity to capitalize on disruptive innovation that has historically ‘gained its share in turbulent times’. ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood believes digital wallets and blockchain technology are among the ‘game-changing innovations’ in 2022 that stock markets have largely ignored.
In a blog post published on the ARK Invest website Jan. 12, Wood suggested that the stock market is facing a ‘wall of worry’ in 2022 driven by built-in fears of inflation and higher interest rates, largely ignoring some innovative technologies. Wood emphasized that digital wallets are ‘replacing cash and credit cards’ and stated that they are overtaking cash as the most important transaction method for offline commerce in 2020.
Digital wallets create commerce
Arguing that digital wallets should not be ignored, Wood noted that digital wallets accounted for approximately 50% of global online trade in 2021. Wood suggested that the recent collapse of crypto exchange FTX did not affect the larger mission of public blockchains as intended. He noted:
“Public Blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum have not skipped a beat in processing transactions.”
After the most difficult year ever in the equity market for innovation-based strategies, we just sent our clients this letter highlighting the breakthrough technologies that already are transforming the world. In our view, innovation solves problems! https://t.co/YdBiIZhY0D
— Cathie Wood (@CathieDWood) January 13, 2023
Highlighting how the FTX crash has educated crypto investors to be more careful about where they store their crypto assets, the share of trading volume on decentralized exchanges that allow trading without a centralized intermediary jumped 37% from 8.35% to 11.4%. Wood said that he had never experienced such unstable market conditions in his ’30 years of working in portfolio management’ and said he had never seen ‘markets shaken so much’.
The CEO suggested that the economy is facing a difficult situation with a decrease in the money supply, falling commodity prices and the “opening up” of inflated stocks; this indicates a slowdown in inflation and possibly even deflation.
