Ark Invest pares Coinbase stake as Bitcoin wobbles, pivots into Bullish and Solana play

Cathie Wood didn’t abandon crypto exposure—she reshaped it. As Bitcoin briefly slid to $60,255 on Thursday, Ark Invest sold 119,236 Coinbase (COIN) shares across three active ETFs, a block now worth around $19 million after Friday’s rebound. That trim came just days after adding COIN, underscoring how Ark actively sizes risk into volatility rather than setting it and forgetting it.

COIN closed Thursday at its lowest level since last March and is down roughly 48% over six months, despite an almost 9% bounce Friday to about $159.13. Even with the relief, Bitcoin is still down about 17% on the week near $69,000, while Ethereum slid 27% over seven days and sits under $2,000 after tagging $1,756. Coinbase remains Ark’s seventh-largest position at roughly $425 million across funds, according to portfolio trackers, but Thursday’s move signaled a rotation within crypto beta more than an exit.

Here’s the tell: Ark simultaneously added more than 716,000 shares of Bullish (BLSH)—now valued at over $19 million as BLSH trades near $27, up almost 8% a day after crypto equities plunged. Ark’s total Bullish stake is about $138 million, even as the exchange disclosed roughly $536 million in Q4 losses. Ark also picked up 150,000 shares of Brera Holdings (SLMT), known as Solmate, a Solana treasury and infrastructure firm, a lot now worth around $172,500. It added Alphabet (GOOG) too, leaning into large-cap liquidity while macro worries circle AI.

The deeper point isn’t timing a bottom; it’s managing the structure of crypto exposure under stress. Coinbase gives you transaction-fee sensitivity, regulatory premium, and operating leverage to U.S. retail flows. That mix works when volumes trend up and fee compression fears fade. But when Bitcoin and ETH crack and SOL underperforms—Solana is down 39% in a month and about 71% off its January 2025 high, recently around $84.01—beta correlations spike and single-name idiosyncrasies matter less.

Shifting part of that risk into Bullish and Solmate changes the payoff profile: - Bullish is a market-structure bet with path-dependent optionality: if fragmented liquidity migrates or if exchange economics normalize post-washout, upside can come before GAAP profitability. The headline Q4 loss (-$536M) reads harsh, yet Ark appears to be paying for future share gains while the narrative is weak. - Solmate exposure leans into Solana’s rebuild phase at depressed token levels. With many crypto treasuries underwater after Thursday’s slide, equity picks tied to infrastructure can offer cleaner torque than holding L1 tokens directly, especially inside ETFs with mandate constraints.

There’s a behavioral edge here too. High-visibility managers often face pressure to “defend” a core holding during sell-offs. Instead, Ark resized COIN while preserving aggregate crypto participation across different rails. That signals process over pride and helps dampen single-name drawdown without capitulating on the sector thesis. It also aligns with Wood’s recent stance that the froth sits in gold—not AI—suggesting she prefers to reprice growth assets rather than chase defensive momentum.

Is this risk-off? Not exactly. It’s a recalibration across liquidity, regulation, and business model dispersion. Coinbase remains a top-seven Ark position. But by rotating into an exchange with early-stage operating dynamics and a Solana-focused infra play, the portfolio seeks convexity if volumes and developer activity snap back, while acknowledging that fee-take and U.S. policy headlines can still whipsaw COIN.

For investors, the takeaway is simple: during broad crypto drawdowns, changing the type of crypto exposure can matter more than simply changing the amount. Ark’s trades reflect that nuance.