Cathie Wood, the CEO of ARK Investment Management, has expressed her bullishness on Coinbase following Ripple’s partial victory over the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on July 13. Wood, along with other industry pundits, believes that the ruling could have positive implications for Coinbase and Binance in their legal battles with the regulator.
Wood acknowledged that the ruling wasn’t entirely in favor of Ripple, but she sees it as a positive development for crypto exchanges overall. Despite Coinbase facing a Wells Notice in March and a lawsuit from the SEC in June, Wood noted that the share price never reached new lows, indicating the resilience of Coinbase’s stock value.
On July 17, three of Wood’s Ark Investment exchange-traded funds (ETFs) sold a total of 248,838 Coinbase shares, amounting to $26.3 million. This came shortly after the Ark Innovation ETF sold an additional $12 million worth of Coinbase stock on July 11. Since the beginning of 2023, Coinbase’s shares have surged more than 184%, starting at $33.60 and reaching $105.55 at the time of publication.
While many industry players are becoming more bullish on Coinbase, analysts from Berenberg Capital Markets cautioned that regulatory uncertainties for crypto exchanges still exist. In a July 17 investment note, lead analyst Mark Palmer stated that Coinbase Earn, a product offering yield on crypto staking, could be vulnerable to being defined as a security based on comments made by Judge Torres in the Ripple case ruling.
Wood’s positive outlook on Coinbase aligns with the growing optimism surrounding the exchange. However, regulatory challenges and the evolving legal landscape remain areas of concern for the crypto industry as a whole.
