Circle (CRCL) Price Shoots 13% Despite Ark Invest Sell-off

On Monday, Circle (CRCL) stock price surged 13%, climbing back to $150 and marking a nearly 5x increase from its IPO price. This comes despite Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest selling nearly 300,000 shares of stablecoin issuer just days after its acquisition following the company’s blockbuster IPO. From Ark’s purchase price of $96, the stock has already gained 50% over the past ten days.

Why Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest Dumped Circle Stock?

On Monday, Ark Invest sold a total of 288,677 Circle shares across two different funds – ARK Innovation ETF (BATS: ARKK) and ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (BATS: ARKW). This sell-off is quite minor in comparison to the 4.5 million Circle shares that the asset manager acquired last week, for a massive investment value of $373 million.

From its acquisition price of $96, the CRCL stock has alsoready appreciated by 50% and is currently trading at $151 as of Monday’s closing. Thus, the Cathie Wood firm is already sitting at a massive profit of $185 million. Although the firm didn’t give any explanation behind yesterday’s sell-off, it seems to be part of the company’s rebalancing of its portfolio. Furthermore, the Ark Invest Daily data also shows that the firm has built fresh positions in Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA).

Ever since the Circle IPO earlier this month, the CRCL stock rally has stunned investors with nearly 5x returns from its issue price of $31. As a result, the company valuations have now soared to a massive $30 billion, adding over $22 billion in just a fortnight.

Popular crypto market veterans like Arthur Hayes believe that USDC stablecoin issuer Circle might see growing competition from other emerging players and banking institutions that have joined the stablecoin race. However, BitMEX CEO believes that Circle could soon become a US Treasury company and be more successful than Michael Saylor’s Strategy.

USDC Stablecoin Expands Market Footprint

While the CRCL stock is roaring on Wall Street, Circle continues to make progress while expanding its market footprint. Last week, the USDC stablecoin issuer announced expansion to the XRP Ledger.

Circle has launched its USDC stablecoin on the XRPL mainnet, enabling direct access for developers, institutions, and users without requiring a bridge. This integration streamlines access to USDC liquidity while leveraging XRPL’s speed and security features.