On August 29, in the latest round of market operations, ARK Invest, led by Cathie Wood, once again increased its weight in the cryptocurrency field.
Documents show that on Wednesday, Sister Mutou bought shares of cryptocurrency-related company Bitmine Immersion Technologies through three actively managed ETFs, with a total value of US$15.6 million.
Specifically, Ark's main buying power came from its flagship fund ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), which purchased a total of 227,569 Bitmine shares.At the same time, ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) and ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF) increased their holdings by 70,991 shares and 40,553 shares respectively.After the move, Bitmine's share price rose nearly 4% at the beginning of the session and closed at around 1.5%.
Bitmine Immersion Technologies is no ordinary blockchain company.According to market data, the company is currently one of the largest enterprise-level holders in Ethereum, holding more than 1.7 million Ethereum tokens, estimated at current market prices, with a value of nearly US$8 billion.As an infrastructure for smart contracts and decentralized applications, Ethereum's growth in institutional positions is often seen as market recognition of its long-term potential.This is why Ark Investment continues to remain interested in Bitmine.
In fact, as early as July 21, Casey Wood had already established a position in Bitmine for the first time through three funds, spending as much as US$174 million that day, demonstrating her determination to lay out.On August 2, Ark increased its stake again and invested about US$17 million to continue to increase its stake in the stock.Although the amount of the new round of buying on Wednesday dropped slightly, it showed that its thinking of holding positions is still firm and the cost of opening positions is being optimized in a timely manner.
Casey Wood's focus on cryptocurrencies is not a spur of the moment.
As early as around 2015, Ark Investment was already one of the first Wall Street institutions to deploy Bitcoin.Not only did she name Bitcoin many times in public, but she also continued to add relevant targets in her investment portfolio, the most representative of which was her firm position in Coinbase.Since Coinbase's listing, almost all of ARK's three funds have maintained regular increases regardless of market fluctuations.During the Bitcoin bull market in 2021, ARK greatly benefited from the gains of Coinbase and Tesla, establishing its trinity investment framework of "technology + finance + disruptive innovation".
Wood's investment logic does not regard crypto assets as short-term speculative tools, but is convinced that they will play an infrastructure role in the future financial system.She has pointed out in multiple public interviews that Bitcoin is the "new store of value" and Ethereum is the "operating system of the global financial infrastructure."Therefore, she not only focuses on "first-level" asset targets such as trading platforms and mining companies, but also deeply arranges companies such as Square (now Block), Robinhood, and Grayscale that participate in underlying services and asset custody.
Take Bitmine, which invested this time, as an example. Not only does it hold a large number of Ethereum assets, but more importantly, it uses immersion cooling technology to improve verification efficiency and cut into the upgraded network structure of Ethereum 2.0.For Wood, this technological advantage represents a future trend of "balancing network effects and energy efficiency."
In addition, Ark Investment's increase in Bullish also reflects Wood's emphasis on "compliant encryption infrastructure."
As U.S. regulators such as the SEC and CFTC gradually advance the standardization of the crypto market, those trading platforms and custodians that can interface with traditional regulatory systems will have higher survival probability and valuation premium.Bullish is a typical beneficiary of this logic.
From the overall perspective, Sister Mutou's encryption investment is divided into three stages: the first stage (2015-2019) is mainly exploratory investment in Bitcoin, and the second stage (2020-2022) focuses on platform companies such as Coinbase, Grayscale, and Square. Today (2023-present), it is mainly based on "new infrastructure companies" such as Bitmine and Bullish, paying more attention to deep indicators such as network efficiency, asset size, and compliance potential.
It is worth noting that although Sister Mutou is firmly bullish on crypto assets, her return on this investment path has not been smooth sailing.The most typical case is Coinbase.In the early days of Coinbase's listing in 2021, Ark Investment quickly built large positions and became one of its earliest large-scale institutional investors.At the stock price high (about US$429), ARK's position once gained a considerable floating profit, but the subsequent bear market and encryption winter caused Coinbase's share price to fall below US$30, and all floating profits were withdrawn and even fell into a book loss.
However, in the face of market fluctuations, Kathy Wood did not choose to retreat, but repeatedly made up for positions at low positions. This is also her consistent strategy.
Data shows that in the second half of 2022 alone, ARK has increased its holdings of more than 1.5 million shares of Coinbase shares.In 2023, with the recovery of Bitcoin and Ethereum markets, Coinbase's share price doubled from the bottom, and ARK's long-term holding strategy once again demonstrated its ability to resist risks.By mid-2025, Coinbase's share price has rebounded to around $110, and the value of ARK's holdings has resumed growth.
A similar rhythm has emerged at companies such as Block (formerly Square) and Robinhood.Although the stock prices of these platforms will experience halving in 2022, ARK has not reduced its positions, but instead uses the downward cycle to continuously optimize costs.
In terms of Ethereum-related layout, Bitmine is still an "early target" and has not experienced a complete bull-bear cycle. However, judging from the rhythm of ARK's three consecutive rounds of additional codes, its operating style still follows the past model: determine long-term logic → Find asset leverage → quickly open positions → continue to buy when falling.At present, although this model has high volatility risk in the short term, its past success in Tesla, Coinbase, Block and other targets has accumulated considerable capital and investor patience for Ark.
