ARK Investment Management benefits from bitcoin boom

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Some are reaping the benefits of the latest bitcoin boom more than others, including ARK Investment Management. Bloomberg reports the investment firm oversees the first exchange-traded fund (ETF) involved with the cryptocurrency.

Currently, ETFs aren’t allowed to directly invest in bitcoin. ARK instead added 11,000 shares in Bitcoin Investment Trust to its fund, Web X.0., in September. The fund has since increased its share holdings to over 3,700.

The benefits stem from the currency volatility of emerging markets. Indeed, many events this past summer rattled markets. Greece faced another debt-payment hurdle. China’s facing a slowing economy and also devalued the Yuan. Cathie Wood told Bloomberg these concerns helped fuel an interest in bitcoin, which is free of any government control. ARK has more than doubled its money from a couple months ago.

Of course, bitcoin’s future is anything but certain. In the past day alone, the price has ranged from a high of over $415 to a low of around $354. This morning prices surged over $390. It’s also important to note that ARK only has about $200,000 invested in bitcoin, Bloomberg’s analysis states this only accounts for %0.8 of the fund’s returns so far this year.

ARK’s website describes their Web X.0 (ARKW) fund as one that focuses on the shifting of technology infrastructure from hardware/software to the cloud. Industries include big data, cloud computing, cryptocurrencies and social media. Current top holdings include Athena, LinkedIn, Netflix and Splunk.

Image credit: Sirius