Cathie Wood's ARK Bets on Tokenization With a Stake in BlackRock-Backed Securitize

ARK Invest, the plus absorption steadfast led by CEO Cathie Wood, is leaning into the tokenization roar by taking a involvement successful tokenization specializer Securitize arsenic Wall Street races to bring assets onchain.

The ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX), ARK's closed-end, actively managed money that invests successful nationalist and backstage companies, held 3.25% of its assets successful Securitize, making the steadfast the fund's eighth largest presumption pursuing artificial quality (AI) companies X.AI and Anthropic, according to helium fund's latest disclosure dated September 30.

Based connected the fund's $325.3 million successful nett assets nether absorption arsenic of September 30, Ark’s involvement successful Securitize should beryllium valued astatine astir $10 million, according to CoinDesk's calculation.

ARK's concern comes arsenic tokenization emerges arsenic 1 of the hottest trends successful crypto, bringing accepted fiscal instruments specified arsenic bonds, funds and stocks onto blockchain rails. Global banks and plus managers are exploring tokenization to chopped colony times, broaden capitalist entree and support markets unfastened astir the clock.

It's perchance a immense opportunity: the tokenized plus marketplace has grown 112% to $33 cardinal year-to-date, RWA.xyz data shows, and could swell to $18.9 trillion by 2033, Ripple and BCG projected earlier this year.

Securitize, founded successful 2017 and led by CEO Carlos Domingo, is 1 of the aboriginal pioneers of the tokenization space. It issued $4.6 cardinal successful tokenized assets moving with accepted concern giants specified arsenic BlackRock, Hamilton Lane and Apollo. It is besides known arsenic the issuer down BlackRock's tokenized wealth marketplace fund, the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) that's starring the tokenized U.S. Treasury assemblage with $2.8 cardinal successful assets.

The steadfast is besides progressive successful equity tokenization, creating on-chain shares of listed wallet supplier Exodus successful 2022 and entering into an agreement with ether (ETH) treasury steadfast FG Nexus (FGNX) to present its communal and preferred banal to the Ethereum blockchain.

Ark's concern follows Securitize's $47 cardinal fundraising circular past year, led by BlackRock and Hamilton Lane (HLNE), with ParaFi Capital and Tradeweb Markets (TW) besides participating.