Crypto: Ark Invest bets on Circle and reduces its ARKB Bitcoin ETF

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The operation comes as Bitcoin slipped below $80,000 yesterday and Circle stock fell 7.1% in a single session to close at $79.84.

Still, Circle is climbing the fund hierarchy. The title is now ARKW's fifth position, with a weight of 4.3% for approximately $67.8 million, according to the manager's latest publications. Tesla, Meta, Shopify and Amazon complete this top portfolio.

The New York house prohibits letting a single line exceed 10% of a portfolio. This diversification constraint triggers almost mechanical adjustments as soon as a security soars or stalls in relation to the rest of the positions. Hence these daily back and forths, which are more about allocation management than a change of conviction.

The stock closed Monday at $79.84, down 1.2% since the start of the year. Tuesday's pre-market saw it lose another 1.1%. The path traveled since the IPO is dizzying. Launched at $31 in June 2025, the stock peaked at nearly $299 a few weeks later.

Ark knows the file better than anyone. The manager had bet around $373 million on the stock in its first trading session, then reduced his position a few days later after the price soared. Buying back around 80 dollars involves the same allocation discipline.

However, Circle's economic model (which it will be recalled that it is essentially based on the interest generated by the reserves backed by USDC, the second stablecoin in the world behind Tether's USDT) depends directly on the trajectory of American rates. Each cut by the Fed reduces this income. The monetary policy decision expected on Wednesday therefore weighs as much on the Circle line as on the fund's Bitcoin exposure.

Monday's sale does not dislodge ARKB from the top of the portfolios. The in-house spot Bitcoin ETF still weighs 3.7% of ARKW (around $58.2 million) and 3.8% of the ARK Blockchain and Fintech Innovation fund ($29.1 million).

Since its launch in January 2024, ARKB has attracted nearly $1.1 billion in net inflows, for $2.5 billion in assets under management. Solid amounts, but incommensurate with BlackRock's IBIT, which has captured most of the institutional demand since the opening of American spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Bitcoin was trading around $79,625 on Tuesday morning before rising towards $80,800 today. Its October peak, at nearly $87,200, remains 8% above.

Joel Kruger, market strategist at LMAX Group, attributes the weakness to rising tensions in the Middle East, rising oil prices and erratic institutional demand. Anemic weekend volumes and leveraged position liquidations did the rest. The LMAX Group strategist sees this as a decline of a macroeconomic nature rather than a fundamental change in the outlook for digital assets.

Machine-translated from French