CoinDesk
Cathie Wood's ARK Invest built a stake of nearly 3.3 million SpaceX shares worth more than $500 million on the day of the company's record-setting IPO — funding the purchase by liquidating roughly $280 million in equities the week before the listing and selling another $48 million across 13 companies on IPO day itself, including Advanced Micro Devices, Roku, and Baidu. SpaceX priced at $135 and closed at $160.95, a 19.2% first-day gain on the largest IPO in history.
Why it matters
ARK is one of the loudest institutional bitcoin bulls on the street, running a spot BTC ETF and maintaining a seven-figure BTC price target for 2030. When a firm with that profile rotates $500 million of risk capital away from crypto and toward a space-AI listing, it sends a clear signal: the hottest institutional trade right now is not digital assets — it is the wave of high-growth AI and space IPOs, with OpenAI and Anthropic also filing to go public. Risk capital is finite, and the gravitational pull of these listings is a near-term headwind for crypto inflows.
Market impact
ARK's own model targets a $2.5 trillion enterprise value for SpaceX by 2030, with a bull case near $3.1 trillion, up from a $350 billion private valuation in 2024 — a return profile that competes directly with BTC's asymmetric upside narrative. The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) ended IPO day with SpaceX at 3.28% of its portfolio. For crypto markets, the read is straightforward: institutional rotation toward AI and space IPOs is likely to continue draining risk capital in the near term, and even committed BTC bulls are not immune to the pull.
Frequently asked questions
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Why does ARK's SpaceX buy matter for Bitcoin and crypto markets?
ARK is one of the most prominent institutional BTC bulls and runs a spot bitcoin ETF. Its decision to rotate $500M of risk capital into SpaceX rather than crypto signals that AI and space IPOs are competing directly with digital assets for finite institutional dollars, creating a near-term headwind for crypto inflows.
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How did ARK fund its $500M SpaceX position on IPO day?
ARK liquidated roughly $280 million in equities the week before the listing and sold an additional $48 million across 13 companies — including Advanced Micro Devices, Roku, and Baidu — on IPO day itself to fund the purchase.
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What is ARK's long-term valuation target for SpaceX?
ARK's model targets a $2.5 trillion enterprise value for SpaceX by 2030, with a bull case near $3.1 trillion, compared to the company's $350 billion private valuation in 2024.
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