Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest Buys $30 Million in Circle Shares Ahead of Potential Arc Token

Ark Invest, the investment firm of noted tech investor Cathie Wood, added more than $30 million worth of shares of stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL) on Wednesday, the firm reported. 

The firm added 353,328 total shares of CRCL across three of its actively managed ETFs, and now holds nearly 3 million total shares valued around $255 million. 

Ark’s latest buy comes amid a major fall in Circle’s share price, which has dropped by more than 20% in the last 5 trading days. CRCL was recently changing hands at $86.21, about even on the day shortly after the opening bell on Thursday. 

The recent slide has extended further over the course of the last month, dropping 37% in that time and now putting CRCL back to a mark not held since its initial day of trading following its massively successful IPO. 

The USDC issuer’s shares tripled from the $31 IPO price on day one, earning multiple stock trading halts on account of the upward volatility. It then surged further, creating a record high of just shy of $300 per share.

The slide comes despite the fact that Circle beat analyst forecasts in Q3, notching $740 million in quarterly revenue—a 66% year-over-year increase. The firm opened the testnet for its stablecoin-specific Arc blockchain network last month, and teased a potential native token as part of its Q3 report.

Wood’s CRCL dip buy mirrors her firm’s actions from last week, when it purchased shares of Ethereum treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) amid a broader slide in its share price. The firm added around $9 million worth of BitMine, expanding its exposure to around $260 million despite the fact that BMNR has fallen around 30% in the last month. 

The firm also maintains exposure to other crypto-related equities, like Robinhood (HOOD) and Coinbase (COIN), and operates its own Bitcoin ETF. 

Wood famously predicted that Bitcoin would reach a price of around $1.5 million per coin by 2030, but last week cut her target to $1.2 million on account of the rapid rise of stablecoin use. 

Bitcoin has fallen around 0.6% in the last 24 hours and is now trading at $101,128. Predictors on Myriad Markets—a product of Decrypt’s parent company, Dastan—give the largest crypto asset by market cap around a 62% chance of pumping to $115,000 before it drops to $85,000.