Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has invested $9,4 million in crypto broker eToro

What’s new? Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has bought 140 000 shares of eToro brokerage worth $9,4 million for its exchange-traded fund (ETF) called Fintech Innovation (ticker ARKF). The purchase took place on Wednesday, May 14, when eToro went public on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker ETOR.

Material by The Block

What else is known? eToro’s share price rose 29% on the first day of trading, closing at $67. This followed an increased initial public offering (IPO) that priced the securities at $52 apiece, reflecting stronger-than-expected demand.

eToro had originally filed for an IPO in March but then suspended its plans due to market volatility caused by US President Donald Trump’s trade tariff hike.

Several other crypto firms, including stablecoin issuer USDC Circle and investment firm Animoca Brands, also intend to go public in the United States this year.

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Ark Invest’s investment strategy assumes that no single asset takes up more than 10% of its fund portfolios to maintain diversification. Ark is likely to rebalance the portfolios if eToro’s share price rises or falls significantly relative to other assets in the company’s funds.

ETOR is the 33rd largest ETF by assets in ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) with 0,93% stake, according to the latest data. Comparatively, Shopify, Coinbase, and Robinhood represent the top three holdings in the fund with stakes of 9,9%, 9,7%, and 7,4% at $100 million, $94 million, and $74 million valuations, respectively.

Along with the purchase of eToro shares, on the same day, Ark sold $7,9 million worth of shares of its own spot bitcoin ETF under the ticker ARKB from the ARKF and ARKW fund portfolios. Despite the sale, ARKB remains the top asset in the ARKW fund with a 9,5% weighting of nearly $165 million. ARKB also remains the fourth-largest asset in the ARKF fund, with a 6,1% weighting ($62 million).

The ARKB spot bitcoin fund recorded $5,2 million in net inflows over the past 24 hours, bringing cumulative inflows since the fund’s launch last January to $2,7 billion. In total, ARKB has $4,9 billion worth of bitcoins under management.

Ark also bought shares of an exchange-traded fund based on the Solana blockchain token from investment firm 3IQ, available on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The $7,6 million worth of shares were allocated to the ARKF and ARKW funds, bringing the asset’s holdings to 1% and 0,6% at $10,3 million and $10,6 million, respectively.

The US securities regulator has yet to approve Solana-based spot exchange-traded funds. Several applications from Bitwise, 21Shares, Grayscale and VanEck are pending.

Finally, Ark Invest sold 14 930 shares of Jack Dorsey’s Block for about $873 000 on May 14. The reason was that shares of Block, the company behind Cash App and Bitkey, closed up 0,6% to $58,5.