ARK Invest unloaded tens of millions in crypto equities right before a landmark SEC ruling sent Coinbase surging again, raising a question every trader in the space should sit with: did Wood get out too early, or just in time?
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.
Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest trimmed roughly $60 million of crypto-linked equities into a regulatory-driven rip that took Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN | COIN Price Prediction) sharply higher last week.
The sales spanned Circle, Coinbase, Bitmine and Bullish, plus a large slug of ARK’s spot bitcoin ETF, with roughly $4 million in Bitmine and about $700,000 in Bullish. Days later, the SEC unveiled an Innovation Exemption that lets platforms trade tokenized U.S. equities without full exchange registration, and Coinbase jumped again.
Barron’s flagged the surprise strength in a piece headlined “Bitcoin, Strategy Stock, Coinbase Surge. Why Cryptos Are Rallying Against All Odds.” The tension is whether Wood cashed out into euphoria or read the shift early. Coinbase closed at $194.25 on September 18, up 10.84% on the week and 21.25% on the month, but still down 43.39% over the past year. That split, a hot week inside a cold trend, is the whole argument.
Why the Trim Looks Disciplined
The fundamentals under the rally are soft. Q2 2026 revenue of $1.22 billion fell 18.5% year over year and missed consensus, with a GAAP loss of $1.36 per share against a $0.23 estimate.
Prediction markets price the Clarity Act becoming law in 2026 at just 0.066, with the “No” outcome at 0.934. Reddit noted the “CLARITY Act Senate vote fails 49-50” post drawing 5,176 upvotes.
But she may be early.
Only four days separated the ARK sales and the SEC’s five-year Innovation Exemption, a genuine structural win Coinbase spent years lobbying for.
Market share hit an all-time high of 10.3%, and CEO Brian Armstrong told analysts that “Bitcoin will come back in a big way too. It keeps going through these cycles.”
Where COIN Sits Versus Peers
Strategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) trades as a levered proxy on Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC), which itself is down 29.03% year over year at $81,820.97.
Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ:HOOD) contests the same retail trading pool Armstrong is chasing, while miner MARA Holdings (NASDAQ:MARA) is pure Bitcoin beta with none of Coinbase’s subscription cushion, where services revenue held at $555 million, 48% of net revenue.
The bull case: Coinbase is building an “everything exchange” with rising share, positive adjusted EBITDA for a 14th consecutive quarter, and optionality on tokenized equities that Polymarket assigns a 0.555 probability of Coinbase leading in the U.S.
The bear case: revenue is down sharply, the Clarity Act faces headwinds, and ARK’s exit signals the easy money on the regulatory trade has been made. Riding a rally like this is fine as long as you plan the exit, which is the whole subject of our free bubble survivor’s handbook: read it here.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.