Cathie Wood's Ark Invest Buys $177 Million In Bullish Shares After Big Crypto IPO

In brief

Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest added 2.5 million shares of Bullish (BLSH) amid the exchange’s IPO on Wednesday.
Shares of Bullish tripled in price after hitting the market at $37, but have settled to nearly $75 as of Thursday afternoon.
The mark gives Ark Invest nearly $189 million worth of BLSH, as of this writing.

Tech investor Cathie Wood’s investment firm Ark Invest added to its crypto exposure on Wednesday, purchasing more than 2.5 million shares of crypto exchange Bullish (BLSH) valued around $177 million at the close of trading.

Ark Invest added 2,532,693 shares of BLSH in total across three of its actively managed ETF funds—ARKK, ARKW, and ARKF—as shares hit the market at the conclusion of the Bullish IPO.

Bullish, which operates a cryptocurrency exchange and owns crypto media publication CoinDesk, offered shares in its firm for $37 as part of its IPO yesterday. But the stock quickly rose after trading began, reaching as high as $118 in the first afternoon of trading.

The feat mirrors the explosive debut of USDC stablecoin issuer Circle, which completed its IPO in June and quickly gained nearly 4x when it hit the market—outpacing IPOs from noted tech firms like Meta and Airbnb when they made their debuts.

Ark Invest maintains exposure to Circle too, holding more than 4.2 million shares of CRCL across its ETFs, now valued at more than $626 million.

It maintains exposure to crypto in other ways too, with combined holdings of more than $1.5 billion in shares of crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) and brokerage Robinhood (HOOD), both of which fall inside its top 10 holdings overall. It also holds around $17 million worth of shares in crypto exchange eToro (ETOR).

Ark also has its own Bitcoin ETF, ARKB, which added $36.6 million in funds on Wednesday and holds more than $2 billion in assets according to data from Farside Investors.

The success of Bullish’s IPO adds fuel to the accelerating trend of crypto firms seeking entwinement with public markets. Other exchanges like Gemini and OKX have signaled their interest in IPOs, with the former confidentially filing its intentions in June.

Others, like FalconX and Kraken, are rumored to be in the mix as well.

Shares of BLSH are up once more on Thursday, jumping nearly 10% to $74.60, bringing ARK’s holdings to nearly $189 million.