ARK Invest, the leading investment firm in disruptive innovation, has made a significant move in the cryptocurrency space. The firm has purchased 4.3 million shares of ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO), the first bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund in the US, according to its daily trade report.
This comes after ARK Invest sold its remaining holdings of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), the largest bitcoin fund in the world, earlier this week.
The decision to switch from GBTC to BITO reflects ARK Invest’s confidence in the new ETF, which offers exposure to bitcoin price movements without the need to hold or store the digital asset directly. BITO tracks the performance of bitcoin futures contracts traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), which are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 16 (Feb 10 – May 3, 2025) opens registrations; register today for early bird discounts.
Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass opens registrations here.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and invest in Africa’s finest startups here.
GBTC, on the other hand, is a trust that holds actual bitcoins in a cold storage but charges a high annual fee of 2% and often trades at a significant premium or discount to its net asset value.
By investing in BITO, ARK Invest is betting on the growing adoption and institutionalization of bitcoin as an alternative asset class. The firm has been vocal about its bullish outlook on bitcoin, which it considers to be a form of digital gold and a hedge against inflation.
ARK Invest’s founder and CEO, Cathie Wood, has repeatedly stated that she expects bitcoin to reach $500,000 in the long term. She has also expressed her support for a bitcoin ETF, which she believes will lower the barriers to entry and increase the liquidity and transparency of the market.
ARK Invest is not the only one to embrace BITO, which has seen a strong demand since its launch on October 19. The ETF has attracted more than $1 billion in assets under management in its first week of trading, making it one of the most successful ETF debuts in history.
The popularity of BITO also indicates that investors are willing to accept the risks and costs associated with bitcoin futures, such as contango, rollover and margin requirements, in exchange for a more convenient and accessible way to gain exposure to bitcoin.
The emergence of BITO and other similar products could also pave the way for a spot bitcoin ETF, which would track the actual price of bitcoin rather than its futures contracts. However, such an ETF would require the approval of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has so far rejected or delayed several applications due to concerns over market manipulation, fraud and custody issues.
The SEC’s chairman, Gary Gensler, has signaled that he is more open to a futures-based bitcoin ETF than a spot one, but he has also warned investors about the potential volatility and complexity of these products.
As the cryptocurrency landscape evolves, ARK Invest is likely to continue to adjust its portfolio accordingly. The firm is known for its active and thematic approach to investing, focusing on disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, fintech and blockchain.
ARK Invest currently offers five actively managed ETFs, two index ETFs and four actively managed mutual funds, as well as a research platform and a podcast series. The firm has over $50 billion in assets under management as of October 2023.
Solana volume passes $BTC and $ETH and bull run has not even started
Solana, the high-performance blockchain platform that aims to scale crypto to the masses, has been making waves in the crypto space recently. According to data from Binance spot trading volume, Solana’s daily trading volume surpassed that of Bitcoin and Ethereum on December 25, 2023, reaching a record high of $86.4 billion. This is a remarkable feat for a relatively new project that launched its mainnet in March 2020.
What is driving Solana’s explosive growth? One of the main factors is its innovative design that enables fast, low-cost and secure transactions without sacrificing decentralization. Solana claims to achieve over 50,000 transactions per second (TPS) with sub-second finality and fees as low as $0.00001 per transaction.
This is possible thanks to Solana’s unique features such as Proof of History (PoH), a novel consensus mechanism that uses a verifiable source of time to order events on the network; Turbine, a block propagation protocol that breaks data into smaller packets for faster transmission; and Sealevel, a parallel smart contract execution engine that optimizes resource utilization.
Another factor is Solana’s vibrant ecosystem of developers, users and investors who are building and supporting various applications and projects on the platform. Solana hosts some of the most popular and innovative decentralized applications (DApps) in the crypto space, such as Serum, a decentralized exchange (DEX) that leverages Solana’s speed and liquidity to offer a superior trading experience.
Audius, a decentralized music streaming service that empowers artists and listeners; and Metaplex, a platform that enables creators to launch their own non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces. Solana also has a strong community of supporters who participate in its governance, staking and validation processes. According to Staking Rewards, Solana has over 960 validators and over 74% of its total supply staked, indicating a high level of security and confidence in the network.
The most exciting part is that Solana is still in its early stages of development and adoption. The project has a roadmap that outlines its future plans and goals, such as implementing sharding, improving cross-chain interoperability, and launching more DApps and DeFi protocols.
Solana also has a growing list of strategic partners and investors who are backing its vision and providing resources and expertise. Some of the notable names include Alameda Research, Multicoin Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Jump Trading, OKEx, Huobi, Binance and many more.
Solana is clearly one of the most promising and disruptive projects in the crypto space today. It has proven its ability to compete with the leading platforms in terms of performance, scalability and innovation. It has also demonstrated its potential to attract and retain a large and diverse user base across various sectors and use cases.
Solana is not just another blockchain platform; it is a game-changer that is reshaping the future of crypto and beyond. And the best part is that the bull run has not even started yet.