Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest is aggressively scooping up discounted Coinbase stock after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against the firm sent shares tumbling.
New data from Cathie’s Ark, which tracks the hedge fund’s trades, reveals three separate Coinbase (COIN) purchases on June 6th, totaling to about 419,000 shares worth more than $21 million.
The SEC first filed a lawsuit against Coinbase earlier this week alleging that the products it offers were all “crypto asset securities” that fell under the jurisdiction of securities laws.
According to the regulatory agency, Coinbase is being sued for allegedly “operating as an unregistered securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency” and “failing to register the offer and sale of its crypto asset staking-as-a-service program.”
Furthermore, the SEC claims that Coinbase ignored the “Howey test,” a decades-old Supreme Court decision that establishes criteria for firms to determine whether a transaction qualifies as an investment contract or not, to maximize profits.
“As part of its public marketing campaign to position itself as a ‘compliant’ actor in the crypto asset space, Coinbase has for years touted its efforts to analyze crypto assets under the standards set forth in Howey before making them available for trading.
But while paying lip service to its desire to comply with applicable laws, Coinbase has for years made available for trading crypto assets that are investment contracts under the Howey test and well-established principles of the federal securities laws.
As such, Coinbase has elevated its interest in increasing its profits over investors’ interests, and over compliance with the law and the regulatory framework that governs the securities markets and was created to protect investors and the U.S. capital markets.”
In addition to Coinbase, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange in terms of volume, alleging similar violations.
At time of writing, COIN is trading for $52.65, a 2.8% rise on the day. However, it fell from $58.26 to $47.03 after the lawsuit was announced, a 21% dip.
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