Cathie Wood makes her first crypto trade of 2026

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I’ve been covering crypto markets for long enough to remember when Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood’s interest in Bitcoin (BTC) was treated with backlash.

In a 2018 note published on ARK Invest (written by Cathie Wood), she said ARK was the first public asset manager to gain Bitcoin exposure (via Grayscale’s Bitcoin Investment Trust/GBTC) and that the move prompted “a number of questions and much ridicule” in September 2015.

The skepticism wasn’t necessarily a huge personal attack, but professionals at the time often questioned the seriousness of crypto as an investable asset and viewed such early bets by a traditionally equity-focused shop as risky or gimmicky.

This was before exchange-traded funds (ETFs), before institutional custody, before the SEC had a dedicated enforcement unit focused on digital assets. It was also before crypto became a political issue, a policy debate, or a regular feature in earnings calls.

Back then, Wood was already talking about Bitcoin as part of a broader technological shift. Not as a trade. Not as a hedge. As infrastructure.

Wood has played a long game in crypto. And she’s done it through periods when being publicly bullish came with real professional risk.

ARK Invest first explored Bitcoin exposure in 2015. At the time, Bitcoin traded closer to $200. There was no spot ETF, no regulated futures market with meaningful liquidity, and no consensus that the asset would survive regulatory scrutiny.

Wood has since explained just how constrained that early exposure was.

“We had to ask the New York Stock Exchange permission to put it in,” she said, adding that ARK was limited to a 1% allocation.

That’s hard to square with today’s environment, where Bitcoin ETFs trade billions of dollars a day and crypto is discussed openly by pension funds, insurers and sovereign wealth managers. But it’s an important reminder. Wood’s interest in crypto didn’t begin once it became institutionally acceptable. It began well before that.

Wood’s public comments about Bitcoin have been remarkably consistent over the years.

She has emphasized supply certainty, global accessibility and low correlation with traditional assets. She has argued that Bitcoin functions differently from equities and commodities because it is governed by code rather than policy.

One line, in particular, has become central to how she frames the asset.

“I am certain about 21 million units,” Wood said, referring to Bitcoin’s fixed supply cap.

Ark Invest estimates that the crypto market could grow to roughly $28 trillion by the end of the decade, driven primarily by wider Bitcoin adoption and sustained price appreciation. In its Big Ideas 2026 outlook, ARK modeled the sector growing at a 61% compound annual rate, with Bitcoin making up the majority of that value.

Under those assumptions, ARK argues that a future supply of roughly 20.5 million Bitcoin in circulation by 2030 would support a price range approaching $1 million per coin.

On Jan. 23, Cathie Wood made her first crypto-related purchases of the year.

According to ARK’s daily trade disclosures, the ARK Innovation ETF purchased 38,854 shares of Coinbase Global Inc., while the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF added another 3,325 shares. Combined, the purchases totaled roughly $9.4 million.

ARK also added a combined 129,446 shares of Circle Internet Group across the two ETFs, a position worth approximately $9.2 million. In addition, the firm bought 88,533 shares of Bullish, investing about $3.2 million.

On the same day, ARK trimmed positions elsewhere in the portfolio, including selling about $8 million worth of Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META).

Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) – $393.1 million, 4.76% of ARKK
(Largest pure-play crypto exchange exposure in the fund)
Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) – $204.5 million, 2.48% of ARKK
(Issuer of USDC stablecoin; core crypto infrastructure play)
Bullish (NYSE: BLSH) – $125.3 million, 1.52% of ARKK
(Crypto exchange backed by institutional market makers)
Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR) – $196.6 million, 2.38% of ARKK
(Bitcoin mining and infrastructure company)
Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD) – $336.2 million, 4.07% of ARKK
(Retail trading platform with significant crypto brokerage revenue)
Block / Square (NYSE: XYZ) – $122.0 million, 1.48% of ARKK
(Payments firm with Bitcoin custody, Lightning integration and balance-sheet BTC exposure)

This story was originally published by TheStreet on Jan 25, 2026, where it first appeared in the MARKETS section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.