Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest sold roughly $65 million of crypto-linked holdings on Monday, one day before the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act in a 49-50 procedural vote. The sales, disclosed in the firm’s daily trade filings, touched nearly every crypto position ARK holds and marked one of its broadest crypto selling days of the year.
What ARK sold
The largest single sale was 1,528,953 shares of the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB), worth about $40 million at Monday’s closing price of $26.19. The shares moved through two of ARK’s funds: roughly 1.06 million through the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) and another 466,133 through the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF). In each case the trim removed about 1.53% of that fund’s ARKB position.
The rest of the selling was spread across single stocks. ARK sold 36,628 Coinbase shares for about $7 million, 142,350 Circle shares across two funds for roughly $13.8 million, 153,881 Bitmine Immersion shares for $3.96 million, and 18,280 Bullish shares for $687,693. The day’s total came to about 1.88 million shares.
Every stock ARK touched had closed higher that day. Coinbase finished up 9.24% at $191.45 and Circle gained 7.53% to $97.42, so the firm sold into strength rather than into a slide. Bitmine, the ethereum treasury company, and Bullish, the crypto exchange operator, also closed higher, which made the filings look more like a coordinated trim than routine housekeeping.
Timing ahead of the vote
The sales landed hours before Tuesday’s cloture vote, which needed 60 votes to advance. Senate Republicans had released a final draft on Monday with ethics changes Democrats had sought, and Polymarket odds of the bill becoming law this year peaked at 34.5% early Monday before falling to 16.5% by Tuesday afternoon. The bill then failed 49-50, with no Democrats voting to advance it and several Republicans voting against their own majority.
Part of the selling has a mechanical explanation. ARK caps each holding at 10% of a fund’s assets, and sharp rallies can push a position over that ceiling, triggering an almost automatic trim. Monday’s jumps in Coinbase and Circle would have done exactly that, and the firm has run the same playbook before: in July it bought a lagging Circle while trimming a rallying Robinhood, and in late July it sold small amounts of Bitmine, Robinhood, Block and Bullish while adding roughly $43.5 million of Coinbase and Circle over three sessions.
Ark limits each position to 10% of a fund’s total assets, so a sharp jump can send a position over that ceiling and set off a trim that happens almost automatically, Cryptopolitan reported.
What the fund holds
ARKB itself is small next to the big spot bitcoin ETFs. Its holdings report showed 32,821 bitcoin as of mid-June, and SEC filings put shares outstanding at about 101 million as of August 3. The fund is down more than 30% year to date, tracking bitcoin’s slide from its October record to the mid-$70,000s this week. The ETF launched in January 2024 with a 0.21% expense ratio and custodians including Coinbase Custody, Anchorage Digital and BitGo, and it trades on Cboe BZX under the same rules as the other spot bitcoin funds.
ARK remains one of the largest institutional holders of crypto equities through its ETFs, and its daily disclosures are watched as a signal of institutional sentiment. Traders parsed Monday’s sales for exactly that signal, since the firm has historically added to crypto positions during drawdowns and trimmed into rallies. The difference this time was scale: no single-day crypto sale this year came close to $65 million across five names at once.
Where the market stands now
The vote’s failure has pressured the whole sector. Bitcoin fell back toward $75,900, spot bitcoin and ether ETFs shed roughly $592 million in a single day, $571 million in crypto long positions were liquidated, and Coinbase, Circle and other crypto-linked stocks gave back their pre-vote gains in Wednesday trading. The liquidation cascade was among the largest of the month and hit leveraged traders who had positioned for the bill to pass.
There is still a procedural path open. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina voted yes on cloture, switched to no after the count, and then filed a motion to reconsider, which preserves the right to bring the bill back for another cloture vote within two sitting days. Under Senate rules, only senators who voted with the winning side can file such a motion, which is why the vote switch mattered.
The Crypto Council for Innovation said a revote could come as soon as September 17 if negotiators reach a compromise, and its chief executive called the result a setback for the 67 million Americans who hold digital assets. Industry lawyers are split on whether the current Congress can pass the bill before it ends in January. Some analysts have already written it off for 2026, pointing to the shrinking Senate calendar and the government funding deadline at the end of the month, which would push crypto legislation down the agenda if a shutdown fight materializes.
Others in the industry are already looking past Congress. Executives told Cointelegraph they expect US financial regulators to fill the gap with rulemaking rather than wait for a statutory framework, a slower but more predictable route that does not depend on 60 votes in the Senate. The Securities and Exchange Commission has its own proposal for crypto asset regulation pending from August, which could move ahead regardless of what happens on Capitol Hill.
ARK’s filings suggest it was not waiting to find out. Whether Monday’s sales were cap-driven housekeeping or a deliberate de-risking ahead of the vote, the firm cut its crypto exposure at the top of a rally that has since reversed. The next signal will be whether it buys back in if the bill revives on Wednesday, or keeps trimming if the revote fails too.