TradingKey - Year-to-date, Coinbase ( COIN) stock has been sluggish, falling more than 28% cumulatively. Unlike most retail investors who are panic selling, Cathie Wood's ARK Invest has been buying against the trend, and has significantly scaled up its purchases recently.
On June 17, Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest once again increased its stake in Coinbase. According to disclosure data, ARK acquired a combined total of over 111,000 Coinbase shares through its three flagship ETFs for a total investment of approximately $19 million. This volume far exceeded any other single purchase in the first quarter.
In early March, Ark Invest purchased approximately 22,000 Coinbase shares worth about $4 million through its ETFs. In mid-February 2026, amid a pullback in Coinbase's stock price, Ark’s three core funds (ARKK, ARKW, ARKF) increased their Coinbase holdings twice in succession, spending $6.9 million to acquire 41,000 shares and roughly $15 million to buy another 93,000 shares, respectively.
Notably, Ark Invest’s purchases of Coinbase stock this year occurred primarily in February, March, and June, which coincided with periods when Coinbase's stock price was depressed, trading roughly in the $150–$180 range. Compared to last year’s peak of $440, Ark Invest effectively accumulated shares at lower prices and avoided chasing the market during subsequent rebounds.
Coinbase stock chart, Source: TradingView
According to the "Big Ideas 2026" research report released by Ark Invest and this year's market dynamics, the core logic behind Cathie Wood's continued heavy holding of Coinbase in 2026 is mainly based on the following:
Leader in tokenized assets: In 2026, Coinbase launched compliant and fully-backed RWA (Real World Asset) businesses, such as tokenized U.S. stocks and commodities. The Ark team believes that Coinbase's layout in compliant tokenized assets has already widened the gap with Binance ( BNB) and OKX ( OKB) and other exchanges.
Monopoly on institutional-grade infrastructure: With the accumulation of Bitcoin ( BTC) and Ethereum ( ETH) spot ETFs, as well as the compliance of more institutional-grade digital asset products in 2026, Coinbase's moat as a custodian is extremely deep, providing highly stable transaction fees and custody revenues. The rapid surge in the proportion of this non-trading revenue has broken Coinbase's past destiny of being highly dependent on bull and bear market trading volumes.
Ecosystem explosion of the Base chain: Coinbase's Layer 2 network, Base, has become a core hub for on-chain transactions, prediction markets, and stablecoin settlements in 2026. The sequencer profits and on-chain gas fees generated by the Base network provide Coinbase with an extremely strong and highly recurring tech-stock premium.
Although Cathie Wood has increased her stake in Coinbase multiple times this year, showing high optimism for its future, she also holds other crypto stocks. According to the latest portfolio data disclosed in June 2026 (using her flagship fund ARKK as the primary indicator), Robinhood has the largest holding size, followed by Coinbase, as detailed below (as of June 24):
Company Name | Ticker | Market Value | Weight |
Robinhood | HOOD | $308,688,486.75 | 4.81% |
Coinbase | COIN | $242,716,611.94 | 3.78% |
Circle | CRCL | $212,802,170.24 | 3.32% |
Block | XYZ | $116,195,100.90 | 1.81% |
Bullish | BLSH | $103,778,778.51 | 1.62% |
Bitmine | BMNR | $88,995,946.05 | 1.39% |
Although the aforementioned stocks are all cryptocurrency concept stocks, differences still exist among them. Coinbase and Bullish are both exchanges, while Robinhood is involved in trading; Circle is in the stablecoin sector; Block and Bitmine both belong to DAT.