Ark Invest Buys $5.2M of Circle, Sells $15.9M of Its Own Bitcoin ETF

Ark Invest bought 65,615 Circle shares worth $5.2 million on Monday while selling $15.9 million of its own ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB), according to the firm's daily trade disclosures, as bitcoin continued trading below $80,000.

The Circle purchase went into Ark's Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW). The bitcoin ETF sale came out of two of the firm's investment funds. Both moves fit Ark's standing rule that no single holding may exceed 10% of a fund's portfolio — a constraint that forces routine rebalancing whenever a position's value shifts sharply against the rest of the book.

The rebalancing comes as bitcoin grinds lower from its early October highs. BTC traded around $79,625 on Tuesday morning, down 8.7% from its October peak of roughly $87,200, with selling pressure building ahead of Wednesday's Federal Reserve interest rate decision.

How big are the positions now?

Circle Internet Group (CRCL) is already the fifth-largest holding in ARKW. As of Oct. 27, the stablecoin issuer carried a 4.3% weighting in the fund, worth around $67.8 million, according to Ark's latest disclosures. Tesla, Meta, Shopify and Amazon fill out ARKW's top five in that order.

Circle shares fell 7.1% on Monday, closing at $79.84 and sitting down 1.2% year-to-date, per The Block's CRCL page. The stock slipped another 1.1% in pre-market trading on Tuesday, according to TradingView.

ARKB, meanwhile, remains a top-10 allocation inside both ARKW and the ARK Blockchain and Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF). The bitcoin ETF holds weightings of 3.7% and 3.8% in the two funds, valued at approximately $58.2 million and $29.1 million, respectively. Since launching in January 2024, ARKB has pulled in roughly $1.1 billion in net inflows and holds $2.5 billion in assets under management, according to The Block's ETF Tracker.

Why is crypto selling off?

Joel Kruger, market strategist at LMAX Group, pointed to growing Middle East tensions, higher oil prices and uneven institutional demand as the drivers of the market's recent weakness. Thin weekend trading and leveraged liquidations amplified the pressure, Kruger told The Block, though he argued macroeconomic factors — not a shift in the outlook for digital assets — were doing most of the work.

Options traders are leaning defensive. Nick Forster, founder and CEO of crypto options platform Derive, told The Block that $80,000 has become the most actively traded bitcoin options strike on the exchange. Puts made up 91% of the roughly $32 million traded at that level over the past week — a clear bid for protection against further declines.

For Ark, the trades are portfolio management rather than a directional call. The firm said nothing to signal a change in its bitcoin thesis, and its 10% concentration cap means further rebalancing is likely if bitcoin keeps sliding or Circle's share price moves sharply.

Wednesday's Fed decision is the next scheduled catalyst. Until then, positioning data suggests traders expect the downside pressure to persist.