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Motley Fool Issues Rare “All In” Buy Alert
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Cathie Wood, the founder of Ark Invest and supporter of the tech and crypto sectors, has seen her fair share of criticism as many of the hyper-growth stocks she owns have come crashing down in the face of rapidly rising interest rates.
But to her credit, Wood has stuck to her guns and hasn’t backed down, usually buying the dips when stocks she likes come down. Following the FTX debacle, which has pushed many crypto stocks into the gutter, Wood has continued to buy stocks in the sector. Here are three crypto stocks that Ark simply can’t stop buying.
Since the large crypto exchange FTX has filed for bankruptcy, resulting in a lot of contagion in the crypto sector, Wood hasn’t hesitated. Ark has purchased 1.3 million shares of the large crypto exchange Coinbase Global (COIN -4.00%) since the start of November. That brings Ark’s stake in the company to 8.4 million shares or roughly 4.7% of all outstanding shares.
Coinbase has obviously struggled this year as the crypto winter has taken over, with less interest in the space and less trading activity. The FTX meltdown hasn’t helped the situation either because it has shaken the faith of many crypto investors, with the sector looking arguably more like the Wild West than ever before. Coinbase has also struggled as competition has intensified and investors worry about the compression of retail trading fees, which make up the bulk of its revenue.
But there could be some positives for the company as a result of the FTX meltdown. For one, it takes out a large competitor, leaving lots of potential crypto customers up for grabs and making the path for international expansion much easier. Furthermore, Coinbase should come out of this looking much more trustworthy than other exchanges.
It’s regulated in the U.S. as a money transmitter, meaning it must hold client funds 1-for-1. It’s a public company, meaning it must make detailed financial disclosures about the state of its business every three months. And it has roughly $5 billion of cash and cash equivalents, giving it balance sheet strength.
Ark also recently purchased 200,000 shares of the crypto bank Silvergate Capital (SI -11.12%), which has developed a real-time payments network to better facilitate crypto trading for crypto exchanges and institutional investors. Ark owns about 625,300 shares of Silvergate or close to 2% of total outstanding shares.
All of the major crypto exchanges use Silvergate, including FTX, which made up about $1 billion of Silvergate’s $12 billion of deposits at the end of the third quarter. The link to FTX has attracted the attention of short-sellers and the stock is down nearly 49% over the last month.
The major concerns are significant deposit outflows if the fallout from the FTX crisis hits other major crypto exchanges or companies that use Silvergate’s payments network. Short-sellers would also argue that Silvergate should have flagged suspicious behavior by FTX and could be looking at regulatory issues.
But in my opinion, it’s far too early to know if Silvergate is facing any regulatory blowback. After all, this is a highly regulated bank conforming to the demands of three different regulatory bodies. I do expect the company to see deposit outflows and struggle with earnings in the near term. Still, if crypto trading continues long-term and there aren’t any major regulatory setbacks I would expect the major crypto players to keep using the bank’s payments network. Ultimately, Silvergate provides critical infrastructure that the crypto industry relies on.
In recent weeks, Ark has also added 450,000 shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC -2.10%). Ark now owns more than 6.5 million shares. Grayscale simply allows investors to gain exposure to Bitcoin without the hassle of buying, storing, and protecting the tokens because Grayscale invests solely in Bitcoin in a passive manner.
So basically, Ark is just buying Bitcoin here and investors know how she feels about the token. Ark published a report earlier this year saying that the price of Bitcoin would hit $1 million by 2030. Despite all of the chaos that has ensued, Wood recently reiterated that call.
“Sometimes you need to battle test, you need to go through crises … to see the survivors,” Wood said in a recent interview with Bloomberg. “We think bitcoin is coming out of this smelling like a rose.”
I’m not quite as bullish as Wood about Bitcoin hitting $1 million in about eight years but I do think Bitcoin is here to stay and will appreciate from its current levels over time.
Bram Berkowitz has positions in Bitcoin and Silvergate Capital Corporation. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and Coinbase Global, Inc. The Motley Fool recommends Silvergate Capital Corporation. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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