Cathie Wood's Ark Investment Has Partnered with 21Shares for a Joint Bitcoin ETF

Cathie Wood, a top wall street investor and founder and CEO of ARK Investment management firm, has cooperated with 21Shares, an issuer of European exchange-traded products, to apply for the Bitcoin ETF-Ark21Shares ETF.

According to a document from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, June 28, the ETF will be listed on the BZX exchange of the Chicago Board of Options Exchange (CBOE) and trade under the ticker ARKB.

Ark investment fund became the latest company to join the Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) competition recently.

In addition to holding Bitcoin directly, the ETF will also track the S&P BTC index. The S&P BTC index is developed by an S&P Dow Jones Indices tool that integrates data from crypto exchanges such as Binance, Bitfinex, Bittrex, Bitstamp, Coinbase Pro, and Gemini, a “combination of qualitative and quantitative indicators” to unify bitcoin-linked indicators.

It is reported that the Bank of New York Mellon will act as the manager and transfer agent of the newly proposed ETF, while Coinbase will keep the directly purchased Bitcoins.

The founder and CEO of ARK Investment management firm Cathie Wood have always been a support of cryptocurrency. In addition to being a board member among directors of 21Shares, the fourth-largest issuer of crypto exchange-traded products based in Switzerland. The company has more than $1 billion in assets under management. 

As early as May of this year, Cathie Wood has joined the board of European crypto technology firm Amun Holdings.

ETF analyst, Eric Balchunas, told BNN Bloomberg that:

“if approved, the Bitcoin ETF would be of significant benefit to 21Shares, allowing the firm to penetrate the U.S. market.”

Till now, none of any Bitcoin ETF applications has been approved for listing in the US, as the US SEC required more time to review these applications. On June 16, SEC once again postponed approving the application of VanEck Bitcoin Trust’s proposed Bitcoin ETF by 45 days.

Cathie Wood-led ARK Invest Purchases Another $54M Shares in Square

Cathie Wood-led Ark Investment Management has purchased 225,937 shares, estimated to be about $53.7 million in Square last Friday, the American financial services and digital payments company, according to online media Business Insider.

The accumulation just came after Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square, announced that the company was actively creating a new non-custodial, permissionless, and decentralised financial services business platform, mainly focusing on Bitcoin. 

The Ark investment, which holds shares of Square, has placed a strong bet on the US version of the online payment provider square.  According to the daily holding documents released officially, Ark investment bought a total of about 226,000 shares of the Square (SQ) at the cost of about $54 million.

The six active funds managed by Catherine wood includes Innovation ETF ARKK; Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF ARKQ; Next Generation Internet ETF ARKW; Genomic Revolution ETF ARKG; Fintech Innovation ETF ARKF; Space Exploration & Innovation ETF ARKX.

Among the ARKK fund that focuses on technology investment, ark investment bought 179,664 square shares last week. At present, the weight of square accounts for the fourth largest proportion of the whole fund, accounting for about 4.97%, followed by only Tesla (10.49%), Roku (5.87%), and Teladoc health inc (5.7%).

In this fund, the ARK team holds a total of 4,529,624 with a market cap of $1,075,876,292.48.

In the ARKW fund focusing on Internet technology, it purchased 46273 square shares, holding a total of 1,107,484 shares of SQ with a market capitalisation of 263,049,599.68, accounting for 4.71%,

In addition to supporting square, it also continued to purchase approximately 64,000 shares of Coinbase. Cathie Wood said in an interview recently that environmental factors will not affect the long-term upward trend of Bitcoin. At present, it has bought Coinbase for five consecutive days.

Not only that, Cathie Wood has always been a staunch cryptocurrency supporter.

As reported by Blockchain.News on June 29, Cathie Wood, a top wall street investor and founder and CEO of ARK Investment management firm, has cooperated with 21Shares, an issuer of European exchange-traded products, to apply for the Bitcoin ETF-Ark21Shares ETF.

Ark Invest Expands Research Arm, Focusing on Blockchain Technology and AI

Ark Investment Management LLC, owned by Cathie Wood, escalated its team. The investment management firm plans to expand its research arm as it seeks deeper development in various fields, including blockchain.

Cathy Wood’s ARK Investment Management has promoted Brett Winton to chief futurist, put four senior research analysts on board, and hired five research assistants, according to official documents.

Brett Winton said:

“We believe that, collectively, artificial intelligence, robotics, energy storage, genomic sequencing, and blockchain technology will rise from less than 10% of the global public equity market capitalization to more than 60% by 2030, representing the largest period of value- creation in history.”

Winton said he would drive ARK’s long-term forecasts across convergent technologies, economies, and asset classes. ARK will dimension the impact of this unprecedented technological boom as it transforms public equities, private equities, crypto assets, fixed income, and the global economy.

ARK founder and CEO Cathie Wood believes this reorganization will expand the size of the team while enabling convergence between the technologies that create the S-curve and the S-curve.

Four senior research analysts got promoted to research directors, including Tasha Keeney, who leads financial modelling for the research team; Sam Korus, who directs the autonomous technology and robotics team; Simon Barnett, who studies life sciences; and Frank Downing, who focuses on Internet development.

In addition, ARK will hire five research assistants to focus on autonomous technology and robotics, digital health, next-generation internet and venture capital.

As the broader digital currency ecosystem tumbled across the board, as did the firm’s investment vehicles, shares in Ark Invest’s portfolio also plunged. The Ark Innovation ETF is down 57.74% so far this year.

Ark Invest also sold off $500,000 worth of Robinhood shares based on Tuesday’s closing price of $8.43 in July.

ARK Investment Launches Its First Crypto Managed Account for RIAs

Independent managed account provider Eaglebrook Advisors has announced a partnership with Ark Invest to develop the ARK Cryptocurrency Strategy and ARK Crypto Asset Strategy.

Cathie Wood’s investment firm ARK Investment is launching its first crypto Separately Managed Account (SMA) for Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs).

SMAs are portfolios created by financial advisors or investment firms for individual investors, and the partnership will allow ARK to expand its services beyond exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Cathie Wood, Founder, CEO, and Chief Investment Officer of ARK said:

“Through our partnership with Eaglebrook, we now can offer actively managed crypto strategies to the wealth management industry. The strategies will be separately managed accounts (SMAs) designed to meet the needs of financial advisors, wealth managers, and their clients by offering direct ownership, low minimums, and portfolio reporting integration among other benefits.

Advisors can differentiate themselves and add to a client’s diversification by adding this new asset class to their portfolios. Our partnership combines Eaglebrook’s best-in-class technology-driven investment platform with ARK’s established digital asset experience to deliver a differentiated, turnkey investment solution.”

The partnership will see both crypto strategies actively managed by Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest available to clients of registered investment advisors as separately managed accounts.

ARK and Eaglebrook are jointly developing the ARK Cryptocurrency Strategy and ARK Crypto Asset Strategy, where the Cryptocurrency Strategy primarily invests in Bitcoin and Ethereum, and Ark’s Crypto Asset Strategy is designed to invest in smart contract networks, DeFi and Web3, infrastructure and Top 10 – 20 coins related to scaling.

“It’s a game-changer for the industry and another sign of mainstream adoption,” said Roddy Chisholm, chief operating officer at Eaglebrook Advisors.

In early September, Ark Investment Management LLC, owned by Cathie Wood, expanded its research arm as it seeks deeper development in various fields, including blockchain and AI.

Ark Investment: U.S. Crypto Innovation Threatened by Regulatory Ambiguity

Major trading firms in the United States, such as Jane Street Group and Jump Trading, are scaling back their involvement in the domestic crypto markets due to increasing regulatory uncertainties and associated risks. This retreat is causing a significant void in the once vibrant U.S. crypto landscape, which could deter interest from institutional investors.

According to recent repport of ARK Investment Management, a well-respected global asset manager and advocate of bitcoin, these developments are causing crypto liquidity in the U.S. to decrease substantially and leading to greater volatility in crypto prices. Data from CoinMetrics suggests that Bitcoin’s daily trading volume has fallen dramatically, from $20 billion per day in March to just about $4 billion last week.

This withdrawal is further evidenced by the gap in Bitcoin price on Binance.US, which last week was approximately $600 higher than on other exchanges, indicative of weakened price discovery in the U.S. market.

ARK Investment, which published a report on February predicting that Bitcoin could reach $1 million by 2030, has long recognized the potential of digital assets and has previously invested in cryptocurrency-related stocks such as Coinbase and GBTC. However, the firm has not maintained a consistent holding pattern, having sold some of its stakes at times.

The current atmosphere of regulatory uncertainty is a cause of concern not just for existing players, but also for potential new entrants in the crypto space. The United States, once considered a hub of innovation for the crypto industry, now risks losing its position to countries like the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Australia, and Switzerland, who are seen to provide more favorable and certain regulatory climates.

This evolving dynamic underscores the need for a more clarified regulatory framework in the U.S. for digital assets. As ARK Investment and others have warned, failure to address these concerns could result in the United States falling behind in the race to harness the transformative potential of this burgeoning industry.

Bitcoin's Dawn of the ETF Era: ARK Investment

According to a report by ARK Investment, in June 2023, Bitcoin experienced a resurgence in institutional sentiment, with the supply of Bitcoin that had remained unmoved for at least a year reaching an all-time high of approximately 70% of the circulating supply. This development suggests a strong holding pattern among Bitcoin investors, a trend that is likely to impact the cryptocurrency’s future trajectory.

The month also saw a narrowing of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust’s (GBTC) discount to Bitcoin’s net asset value (NAV), possibly due to Blackrock’s Bitcoin ETF application or indications that Grayscale had gained an edge during its trial against the SEC. This shift towards a one-year low in the GBTC’s discount to Bitcoin’s NAV could signal a growing institutional interest in the cryptocurrency.

Institutional activity in Bitcoin, as indicated by the balance of Bitcoin on OTC desks, hit a one-year high in June. This uptick in institutional activity coincides with BlackRock’s filing for a Bitcoin ETF, following ARK/21 Shares’ filing in April. The move by BlackRock, a global investment management corporation, suggests a growing acceptance of Bitcoin in traditional finance circles.

However, the global economy appears to be heading towards a recession, with recent data from the manufacturing sector indicating a decline in new orders in the Purchasing Managers’ Index, a proxy for future manufacturing activity. In 2022, the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined for two consecutive quarters, implying a technical recession.

In other news, the SEC filed charges against Coinbase for operating as an unregistered securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency, and against Binance entities and founder Changpeng Zhao. Robinhood announced plans to delist tokens for Solana, Cardano, and Polygon after SEC suits named them as securities. Meanwhile, the Tether USDT stablecoin’s market cap climbed to an all-time high of $83.2B.

Despite these challenges, Bitcoin’s holder base and network activity remained strong in June, with active owners increasing by 9.1% and long-term holder supply increasing by 0.11%. These trends suggest a robust and resilient Bitcoin ecosystem, even in the face of potential economic downturns and regulatory hurdles.

Ark Investment: Autonomous Vehicles to Boost GDP by $26 Trillion, Save Over 1M Lives by 2030

According to ARK Investment Management LLC, driverless cars are expected to revolutionise the global economy over the next 10 years and might impact GDP by as much as 20%. This huge shift is anticipated as a result of autonomous vehicles’ transformational potential to lower accident rates and lower transportation expenses.

The net GDP benefits from the introduction of autonomous taxis might be astounding, amounting to $26 trillion by 2030, or around 26% of the size of the US economy today. This economic shift is not just about numbers; it’s about lives saved.Between 30,000 and 35,000 lives might be saved by autonomous cars in the US, and 1.2 to 1.5 million lives worldwide.

While fewer accidents might lead to a GDP reduction of around $1 trillion per year due to decreased repairs, hospital stays, and insurance rates, the overall economic impact remains positive. The preservation of lives and reduction of injuries, coupled with the continued economic activity from employees who would otherwise be incapacitated, could contribute an additional $3 trillion to the global GDP annually.

The passenger experience in autonomous vehicles is set to change dramatically, with enhanced safety and newfound free time. This shift could lead to a global productivity uplift of approximately $17 trillion.

Due to their reduced running expenses and pricing, electric vehicles are predicted to take over the autonomous transportation market, which may result in a $1.2 trillion yearly drop in fuel and maintenance income for gas-powered vehicles.

The emergence of driverless taxis may cause a decline in the sale of personal vehicles in metropolitan areas, which would reduce GDP by almost $1.8 trillion annually. However, the estimated $1 trillion in sales of driverless vehicles to fleet operators may somewhat counterbalance this.

The transformation of unpaid driver activity into measured economic activity by autonomous cars could potentially generate around $9 trillion in service revenues annually. By 2030, personal autonomous travel could add a net $26 trillion to global GDP per year. This includes a potential increase of $30 trillion due to autonomous ride-hail service revenues and increased productivity, and a decrease of $4 trillion due to fewer accidents, lower gas-powered vehicle sales, and lower fuel and maintenance costs.

ARK projects that autonomous ride-hail could add around 2-3 percentage points to global GDP per year by 2030. This economic impact is anticipated to be greater than the combined boosts delivered by the steam engine, robots, and IT.

With global growth potentially nearly doubling from 3.3% per year to around 6% thanks to autonomous taxis, consumers are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries. Consumer purchasing power could increase as transportation costs drop, and time freed from unpaid driving could increase by around 10 weeks.

The autonomous vehicle revolution is not just about technology; it’s about reshaping the global economy and improving lives. As we move towards 2030, the impact of this transformative technology will become increasingly apparent.

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