- Coinbase shares jumped after it announced that it was being used by investment giant Blackrock
- COIN shares hit $116, the highest in three months, on the news
- Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest sold 1.4 million shares just last week at $53.50 per share
Coinbase’s share price enjoyed something of a rarity yesterday as the price went up following news that investment giant Blackrock intends to use it for institutional crypto trading and custody services. COIN jumped from $78 to $116 yesterday on the back of the news, temporarily breaking a downtrend that has been in place since November 2021 and representing a blow to Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest, which sold 1.4 million COIN shares last week at around $53.
Coinbase Prime Meets Aladdin
Coinbase announced yesterday that Blackrock had tapped it up to work on a crypto custody and trading solution, with the result being a merging of Coinbase Prime, its institutional crypto offering, and Aladdin, Blackrock’s investment management platform. Coinbase Prime will provide crypto trading, custody, prime brokerage, and reporting capabilities to Aladdin’s client base, who are also clients of Coinbase.
Blackrock, which has over $10 trillion in assets under management, made moves to get into the crypto space back in 2021 when it filed for BlackRock Strategic Income Opportunities and
BlackRock Global Allocation Fund Inc., two cash-settled Bitcoin futures contracts.
Clearly, this wasn’t enough exposure for Blackrock, with Joseph Chalom, its Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships, saying that its institutional clients are “increasingly interested in gaining exposure to digital asset markets and are focused on how to efficiently manage the operational lifecycle of these assets.”
Ark Invest Sells Right Before the Pump
This is particularly good news for the crypto space given the current bear market status and the concerns that increased regulation, including potential trading bans for proof-of-work coins, will constrict the space.
The news wasn’t so good for Cathie Wood’s investment firm Ark, which sold 1.4 million COIN shares on Wednesday July 27th at around $53.50 per share, having bought all the on the way down to that level, and so missed out on a 100% pump.
