ARK’s Cathie Wood bought bitcoins years ago for $100,000, she’s currently sitting on a $7.6 million profit

Cathie Wood recently revealed that she bought $100,000 worth of bitcoins several years ago, when they were trading at around $250. The referenced unit price of the crypto suggests Wood made the purchase somewhere in 2015.

Speaking on the podcast “What Bitcoin Did” by Peter McCormack, the CEO of ARK Investment revealed that she has not sold anything from that initial investment. This suggests that her current profit on that $100,000 stake is about $7.6 million.

Cathie Wood stated that she bought bitcoins after reading the Satoshi white paper. However, she explained that while she was able to make this personal bet on BTC, she was not able to make the same bet on the ARK funds themselves. This is because the stipulations on the company only allow for investments in securities.

Nevertheless, ARK eventually gained exposure to bitcoin via the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). Currently, the ARK Next Generation Internet Fund (ARKW) holds approximately 5.9 million shares of GBTC. In addition, the total value of these shares is approximately $67.4 million. The official website describes the initiative as:

“…an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that seeks to achieve long-term capital growth by investing under normal circumstances primarily (at least 80% of its assets) in foreign domestic and U.S. exchange-traded equity securities of companies that are relevant to the fund’s investment theme of next-generation Internet.”

Cathie Wood remains bullish on bitcoin

Despite the series of turbulent phases that BTC has gone through this year, Cathie Wood remains optimistic about the leading digital currency. Moreover, the ARK CEO sees the Grayscale Trust trading at a “fire sale“Provided that it can soon get the green light to convert to a cash exchange-traded fund. However, that speculation still depends on regulators’ approval for the trust, which is currently selling at about a 35% discount to net asset value.

Today BTC is changing hands at just over $19,000. In addition, the leading cryptocurrency is about 60% off its record high of $69,000 set last November.

ARK to offer crypto strategies to investment advisors

In other news, it was previously reported that ARK would soon begin offering crypto strategies to investment advisors. In addition, reports also stated that this development would occur via a collaboration with digital asset platform Eaglebrook.

ARK has been involved in crypto stock and securities investing for some time now. By making its two actively managed crypto strategies available to registered investment advisors, the platform is looking to take the next step. It is poised to expand its services beyond exchange traded funds (ETFs).

Under ARK’s collaboration with Eaglebrook, the strategies will be available as separately managed accounts. Speaking in more detail about this development at the time, Cathie Wood 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 integrated portfolio reporting, among other benefits.”