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Ark Invest sells over $50 million worth of Coinbase stock amid stock market rally

Cathie Wood’s investment firm, Ark Invest, has made significant moves in its Coinbase stock, selling over $50 million worth of shares as shares of the cryptocurrency exchange continue to rise.

This was the second time in a week that Ark Invest has reduced its stake in Coinbase, reflecting its hands-on management approach amid a backdrop of regulatory development and industry optimism.

At the same time, Ark Invest has been actively investing in other prominent companies including Meta Platforms and Robinhood.

Ark Invest profits from Coinbase Rally

Ark Invest, led by Cathie Wood, sold a total of 478,356 shares of Coinbase on Friday, worth more than $50 million. The sales were distributed across Ark’s flagship fund, the Ark Innovation ETF, which sold 263,247 shares, the Ark Next Generation Internet ETF, which sold 93,227 shares, and the Ark Fintech Innovation ETF, which sold 121,882 shares.

This decision comes on the heels of Coinbase’s role as a vigilant exchange partner for several Bitcoin ETF candidates, including industry giants BlackRock and Fidelity. Furthermore, recent legal rulings surrounding the status of the XRP cryptocurrency have added to the overall optimism of the industry.

While reducing its holdings in Coinbase, Ark Invest has also been actively investing in other adjacent crypto companies. The company started buying shares in Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) and Robinhood. In June, the Ark Innovation ETF bought 69,793 shares of Meta, while the Ark Fintech Innovation ETF bought 111,843 shares of Robinhood.

Additionally, the Ark Next Generation Internet ETF increased its holdings with 12,559 Meta shares and 169,116 Robinhood shares. These strategic investments reflect Ark Invest’s ongoing strategy to navigate the evolving digital asset market.

Ark Invest’s decision to cut its holdings in Coinbase following significant acquisitions during market volatility and regulatory challenges demonstrates a calculated approach to securing profits amid the stock’s impressive recovery this year and indicates a calculated effort to secure gains during the recovery. of the actions.

Additionally, it demonstrates the company’s commitment to diversifying its portfolio to achieve long-term growth potential, as evidenced by its investments in Meta Platforms and Robinhood.

As the cryptocurrency market continues to evolve, Ark Invest shares will be closely watched by market participants, seeking information and guidance to navigate this dynamic landscape.

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Coinbase Wallet Stops Support For Ripple (XRP), Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

Coinbase Wallet News: Citing low usage, Coinbase Wallet announced it will no longer support assets like Ripple (XRP) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) among others. The team announced December 5, 2022 as the deadline to stop support for a total of cryptocurrencies. Users will be able to access their holdings in these assets through the Coinbase Wallet recovery phrase, it said. With this, these networks will lose support to access Dapps on the networks.

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Nearly 100 Customers Sue Coinbase Over Its Wallet App

Coinbase is in trouble after nearly 100 customers filed lawsuits against the Western Hemisphere’s largest digital currency trading platform.

Customers Are Angry at Coinbase

These customers accuse Coinbase of turning a blind eye to a scam that ended up costing them over $21 million in digital currency funds. The problem stems from the Coinbase Wallet, which last fall, when downloaded, directed users to fraudulent or fake websites that allowed scammers and hackers to take control of their accounts and transfer their digital assets to Coinbase wallets.

To date, due to the terms and conditions applied by Coinbase, none of the lawsuits in question have resulted in defendants or plaintiffs going to court. Instead, everything is handled through an arbitration process. This ensures that details remain out of the media and that lawsuits take place privately between the company and those affected. Legal disputes are heard by a neutral decision maker who then decides which party deserves a decision in their favor.

In the arbitration process, customers allege that Coinbase was well aware of what was happening with its wallet application and that executives did nothing to address it or minimize the damage. They made several attempts to alert Coinbase bosses to what was going on, but little was done to acknowledge their concerns or the money they had lost. Now these people are taking stronger means to get their money back and get justice for themselves.

To say it was a difficult year for Coinbase would be an understatement. 2022 has been affected by digital currency based issues for everyone, although Coinbase has arguably been affected more than others. What was initially supposed to be a year of massive hiring and taking headcount to new levels turned into a time when not only were all hiring plans put on hold, but the exchange subsequently announced that it would lay off around 18% of its team. to deal with the cryptocurrency windfall the space was experiencing.

The company has had a tough year.

Furthermore, the company has seen its shares crash and burn in recent weeks due to how tied it is to bitcoin, the world’s largest and most popular cryptocurrency by market capitalization. The asset has lost over 70% of its value in the past 12 months, and with bitcoin losing so much in such a short period, the digital exchange is seeing similar results.

When the company first went public in April 2021, shares were priced above $300, even though those same shares have since dropped into the $50 range. Coinbase is also the subject of a new SEC investigation.

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Coinbase Granted Permission For Support On SEC Vs Ripple

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has been granted permission to file its amicus brief to join Ripple Labs in supporting its ongoing lawsuit with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

On Monday, US District Judge Analisa Torres granted motions for the 12 Ripple supporters to submit their amicus briefs. Among the list of growing supporters are Coinbase and the Blockchain Association. Backers have until November 18 to submit their abstracts, but Coinbase has already confirmed their submission. Earlier this month, she asked the court to consider her request for an amicus brief. An amicus brief is known as a “friend of the court” and is a legal brief that contains advice or information related to a court case from an organization that is not directly involved in the case.

The case between Ripple Labs and the SEC took a big step forward in October, when it was decided in Ripple’s favor and Judge Torres ordered the SEC to turn over Hinman’s disputed documents. These documents contain internal SEC emails and drafts from former corporate CFO William Hinman. The documents contain discovery material from a speech given by Hinman in which he claimed that Bitcoin and Ether are not securities. In his speech, Hinman said:

Based on my understanding of the current state of Ether, the Ethereum network and its decentralized structure, the current offers and sales of Ether are not securities transactions.

The documents are more broadly related to the lawsuit against Ripple Labs, its former CEO Chris Larson and its current CEO Brad Garlinghouse. The SEC filed the lawsuit in 2020 alleging that the three entities, Ripple Labs, Garlinghouse, and Larsen, illegally profited from the sale of Ripple’s native XRP token as unregistered securities.

After a week of great uncertainty for the broader cryptocurrency market, XRP was leading in terms of gains and gained more than 10% following developments.

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Coinbase Partners with BlackRock to Offer Cryptocurrencies to Institutions

Coinbase, one of the world’s largest and most popular digital currency exchanges, is partnering with investment giant BlackRock to offer its clients the opportunity to trade digital assets.

Coinbase and BlackRock team up

Joseph Chalom, Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships at BlackRock, explained in a recent interview:

Our institutional clients are increasingly interested in gaining exposure to digital asset markets and are focused on how to efficiently manage the operational lifecycle of these assets. This connectivity will allow clients to manage their bitcoin exposures directly within their existing portfolio management and trading workflows for a portfolio-wide view of risk across all asset classes.

It’s interesting to see BlackRock make this change. Larry Fink, the company’s president, said about five years ago that bitcoin was the “money laundering index.” He didn’t trust cryptocurrencies, nor did he have any desire, it seems, to get involved with them.

However, it looks like things have changed not exactly for Fink, but also for the company’s clientele. They are starting to realize the true prowess of digital assets and want to get involved. They are eager to take advantage of digital currency offerings and expand their portfolios beyond the standard investment tools they have been exposed to.

For this reason, it appears that BlackRock feels they have no choice but to continue offering digital currencies to customers, regardless of how Fink feels. Executives know there is business to be lost if they don’t change with the times, and offering cryptocurrencies is likely to please everyone sitting at the BlackRock table.

Owen Lau, analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., gave his thoughts on the new partnership, commenting:

After this validation, Coinbase will be able to partner with more traditional financial industries. This shows that even with BlackRock’s size, they will be partnering with a native cryptocurrency company rather than developing their own features.

The move comes at a pretty interesting time, given how poorly the crypto space has been doing lately. Bitcoin, for example, is down over 60% from its all-time high of over $68,000 per unit last November. At the moment, the asset is struggling to maintain a position in the $20K range, with the entire crypto space losing around $2 trillion in overall valuation.

A lot of controversy surrounding the exchange

The fact that the space is in such a weak state and yet so many institutions still want to take advantage of it is proof that digital currencies are becoming much more mainstream and legitimate in people’s eyes, even as prices fall.

Coinbase has been at the center of a lot of controversy lately. The company is under SEC investigation and a former employee has been accused of insider trading.