Ark Invest buys more of its spot bitcoin ETF, sells BITO

The investment firm’s buys of its Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF this week amounted to roughly $30 million worth of shares

article-image

viewimage/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Ark Invest has bought more of its spot bitcoin ETF as it continues to dump shares of the largest bitcoin futures fund. 

The fund manager’s Ark Next Generation ETF (ARKW) on Thursday bought 365,695 shares of the spot bitcoin ETF it launched last week with 21Shares, according to a trade notification.  It sold 758,915 shares of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy (BITO) from the fund that day. 

The move comes after ARKW sold 757,664 of BITO shares on Tuesday, while adding 365,427 shares of the Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB). 

In total, the roughly 730,000 of ARKB shares added — as well as the 1.5 million of BITO shares sold — were each worth roughly $30 million at 10 am ET on Friday morning. 

Read more: Bitcoin ETF Tracker

The ProShares fund was the first bitcoin futures ETF in the US. It launched in October 2021 and gained more than $1 billion in assets after two days on the market. 

But 10 US spot bitcoin ETFs launched last week following a milestone decision by the US Securities and Exchange Commission — opening up a new access point for BTC exposure.

Bloomberg Intelligence analysts predicted last month Ark Invest would offload its position in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and ultimately move that capital into ARKB to bolster the fund’s asset base. Flows and volumes are “crucial” to marketing an ETF, they noted at the time. 

Ark Invest did just that, first replacing sold shares of GBTC with BITO before piling money into their own spot bitcoin ETF. 

Read more: BlackRock beats spot bitcoin ETF rivals in race to $1B assets

After five days trading, the Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF ranks fourth among spot bitcoin ETFs  — behind BlackRock, Fidelity and Bitwise — with about $320 million of inflows, according to Bloomberg Intelligence data

BITO has seen $272 million of outflows since the spot bitcoin funds launched on Jan. 11, ETF.com data shows.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

recent research

dydx unlimited.png

Research

dYdX Unlimited is a revamp to the protocol's design and tokenomics.

article-image

As projects like BitVM innovate, Bitcoin builders call for transparency over misleading buzzwords

article-image

USD-denominated floor prices for both NFT collections have now gone more than 20x since December 2022

article-image

Keep an eye on liquidity into the holidays, Kraken’s Thomas Perfumo says

article-image

A Solana researcher identified that the network’s top sandwich bot was pocketing millions of dollars a day from sandwich attacks

article-image

A strategic currency devaluation does have some historical precedent in China

article-image

Bitwise execs predicted Tuesday that bitcoin ETFs will attract more flows next year than they did in 2024