Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest to offer crypto strategies to investment advisors

Cathie Wood’s investment firm, ARK Investment, is making its two actively managed crypto strategies available to registered investment advisors. The strategies will be available as separately managed accounts (SMA) through a collaboration with the digital asset platform Eaglebrook, the companies announced on October 3. 

The ARK Cryptocurrency Strategy aims to capitalize on the monetary revolution, said the companies in the statement, claiming that it “could serve as a strategic allocation in well-diversified portfolios.”

Cathie Wood, ARK’s founder and CEO, said:

“The strategies will be separately managed accounts (SMAs) designed to meet the needs of financial advisors, wealth managers, and their clients by offering direct ownership, low minimums, and portfolio reporting integration among other benefits.”

This collaboration should allow Ark to expand its services beyond exchange-traded funds (ETFs). An SMA is a portfolio created by a financial advisor or investment firm for a single investor. On ETFs, investors own shares of the fund instead of the underlying securities. 

The top-tier fund at ARKs, the Ark Innovation ETF, seeks long-term growth of capital by investing in disruptive innovation companies, according to its official website. It has $7.946 billion under management and was down 60.11% as of Sept. 30, while the S&P 500 declined 23.87% and the BTC price dipped over 58% in 2022. Wood is known for being a big Bitcoin (BTC) believer, who predicted that BTC would hit $1 million by 2030.

Yassine Elmandjra, ARK’s cryptoasset analyst, said in the statement the “much of the speculative behavior has died down”. She added that the moment “presents an attractive entry point for investors.”

Ark sold over 1.4 million Coinbase (COIN) shares through three of its funds in July as regulators probed the firm for alleged insider trading. At that time, the firm was one of Coinbase’s largest shareholders.