Ark Invest offloaded 25,662 Coinbase shares across two of its exchange-traded funds on Thursday, according to the company’s latest trade filing.

The investment firm sold 22,690 shares ($5.7 million) from its Innovation ETF (ARKK) and 2,972 shares ($742,000) from its Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW).

The $6.4 million worth of COIN Ark offloaded yesterday represents its first major Coinbase share sales since it offloaded $21 million worth of the stock on March 26.

Ark’s investment strategy aims to let no individual holding take up more than 10% of an ETF’s portfolio to maintain diversification within its funds — meaning it is likely to continue rebalancing its fund weightings if Coinbase’s stock price continues to rise compared to other holdings.

During a Q&A session on the social platform Reddit last week, when a user inquired about the firm’s rationale for “dumping” its Coinbase shares, Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood responded, “We are not dumping. This is what active management is all about.”

"Coinbase has increased roughly ninefold since spring of 2023," Wood added. "It has been more than 10% of the portfolio. We are simply taking profits. It is still the number one position and we are redeploying those profits into stocks that, just like Coinbase roughly a year ago, have been hurt by very short-term news, including Tesla, and a lot of them are in the life science space."

According to the firm’s latest disclosures, Coinbase remains the largest holding within its ARKK ETF with a weighting of 9.9%. However, Coinbase has slipped to the second-largest holding in its ARKW fund, with a weighting of 10.1%, just behind Ark’s own spot Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) at 10.2%.

ARKK’s Coinbase holdings have a market value of $708.1 million, whereas ARKW’s COIN weightings are valued at $168.8 million at current prices. Overall, the ARKK and ARKW funds are up 29.4% and 58.2% over the past year, respectively.

Oppenheimer raises Coinbase share price target to $276

Ark Invest’s latest sales come as New York-based investment bank and financial services firm Oppenheimer raised its Coinbase share price target to $276 yesterday, up from a previous target of $200, while reiterating its buy rating.

“The adoption of digital assets continued after the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in January," Oppenheimer Executive Director Owen Lau wrote in a note. "We estimate that COIN's 1Q24 trading volume would be up 95% quarter-on-quarter, and 107% year-on-year to $300 billion.”

Oppenheimer’s price target is 10.5% higher than Coinbase’s closing share price of $249.61 on Thursday. COIN traded down 0.8% yesterday but is up 8.5% over the past month and 44.3% year-to-date, according to TradingView.

COIN/USD price chart. Image: TradingView.

Coinbase is currently valued at $46.4 billion, according to The Block’s data dashboard.