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

January 19, 2024 10:57 am

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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.

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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.

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.

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