ARK Uses 'Wells Dip' to Stock Up Again on Coinbase Shares, Two Days After Selling

ARK Invest bought shares of Coinbase (COIN) low and sold it high this week.

On Tuesday, Cathie Wood’s fund sold 160,887 shares of Coinbase for $13.5 million when the stock was at approximately $83 a share. Just over 48 hours later, ARK bought the dip and purchased 268,928 shares of COIN as the stock fell and closed Thursday in the U.S at $66.30.

According to an email sent out Thursday night U.S. time, 230,599 of these shares went to ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) while 38,329 of these shares went to the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW).

In the course of those two days, Coinbase disclosed that it received a Wells Notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which warns a business the SEC is planning to take enforcement action against it.

A Wells Notice signifies that the SEC has concluded an investigation and believes the evidence it has gathered is substantial enough to warrant enforcement action. It doesn’t guarantee that enforcement action will take place, and Coinbase has until March 29 to advise the SEC if it plans on contesting the enforcement action.

The SEC also announced on Wednesday that it is suing Justin Sun, the Tron Foundation, the BitTorrent Foundation, and Rainberry (formerly BitTorrent) for selling unregistered securities and manipulating the market via wash trading. Internet personality Jake Paul is also being sued for his alleged illegal promotion of Sun-linked crypto.

In a recent Twitter space, Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, said the company was going to get more politically involved and call on its U.S.-based users to elect “pro-crypto candidates.”

“What we’re going to do is start putting out content where people can contact their congressman, donate to pro-crypto candidates, show up at town halls, make your voice heard,” he said. “We are going to elect pro-crypto candidates in this country to make sure that our success is ensured.”

Despite the Wells-induced dip, COIN is still up 97% year to date.

ARK also disclosed that it has purchased 320,557 shares of Block (SQ), with 275,554 of these shares going to ARKK.

Jack Dorsey’s fintech payments company, which has some crypto exposure, is also down 14% as of market close Thursday after notable short-seller Hindenburg Research attacked it in a scathing report for “wildly” overstating user counts.

Block says the report is inaccurate and it intends "to work with the SEC and explore legal action against Hindenburg Research."