Ark’s Q1 SEC filing showed 639,069 shares in Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust, valued at more than $20 million.
Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment registered 639,069 shares in Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust for the first quarter, valued at approximately $20.9 million at current prices.
ARK Investment has bought 639,069 shares of the Grayscale Ethereum Trust. pic.twitter.com/ofXD5F7QpA
— Documenting Ethereum ? (@DocumentEther) May 18, 2021
The news of Ark’s major investment into Ethereum was seen as a bullish sign by Ethereum and DeFi proponents. Mythos Capital founder and Bankless author Ryan Adams emphasized how significant he saw the development:
“Remember when you told you the institutions would never buy ETH? They keep underestimating this asset. ETH IS MONEY.”
Ether bulls have been growing noticeably more confident recently, with the co-founder of venture capital firm Framework Ventures, Vance Spencer tweeting earlier today:
“There were many times when crypto would not have been strong enough to survive without BTC as the dominant narrative. I no longer believe this is the case. Regime change is coming.”
Institutional managers purchased $30.2 million in Ethereum at the end of April, taking their cumulative shares to an all-time high of $13.9 billion on May 5.
Despite the excitement around the ETH buy, Ark’s Q1 filing with SEC earlier this month shows the firm’s portfolio still heavily leans in Bitcoin’s favor. Ark reported holdings of 8.6 million shares in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust, worth more than $298 million as of today.
Data from TradingView, on the other hand, reveals that Grayscale’s ETH Trust has become much more profitable than Grayscale’s Bitcoin trust in 2021.
Grayscale’s ETH Trust, or ETHE, has risen by 179 percent this year, rising from $11.70 on January 4 to $32.70 today. Grayscale’s BTC Trust, or GBTC, has risen by just 1.7 percent in the same time period, rising from $33.80 on January 4 to about $34.38 today. GBTC is currently trading at a 15-20% discount to its Bitcoin shares.
Cathie Wood and Ark Investments do not share Elon Musk’s and Tesla’s latest environmental issues.
Ark challenged Elon Musk’s analysis on the subject in a May 17 newsletter, adding that “Tesla’s decision appears to have been triggered by private equity firm Greenidge’s plans to revive a coal power plant to mine Bitcoin.”
Greenidge, according to the company, has explained not only that its plant is operated by natural gas and feeds the grid, but that it has already purchased carbon credits to offset the emissions:
“In our view, the concerns around Bitcoin’s energy consumption are misguided. Contrary to consensus thinking, we believe the impact of Bitcoin mining could become a net positive to the environment.”
According to the news outlet Bazinga on May 18, Ark recently added another 259,897 Coinbase shares to its assets through the Ark Innovation ETF and the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF, which are worth more than $62 million at today’s price of about $241.