Ark Invest Buys More Than $500 Million of SpaceX in IPO Debut, Weighing on Crypto Flows

Cathie Wood's Ark Invest bought more than $500 million of SpaceX stock on the company's first trading day, a move that could add near-term pressure to cryptocurrency flows as the firm shifts capital from digital assets toward newly listed artificial intelligence and space stocks.

CoinDesk reported on June 15 that Ark Invest bought about 3.3 million SpaceX shares on June 12, the day of the company's initial public offering. Based on the first-day closing price, the stake was worth more than $500 million.

SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 a share and ended its debut session at $160.95, up 19.2% from the offering price. CoinDesk described the deal as the largest IPO on record and said the first-day surge showed institutional investors are again willing to pay premium valuations for high-beta innovation stocks.

Ark Invest appears to have funded the SpaceX purchase by trimming existing holdings. According to CoinDesk, the firm sold about $280 million of stock in the week before the listing. On June 12, it also sold about 948,000 shares across 13 companies, including AMD, Roku and Baidu, for at least $48 million.

Most of the SpaceX purchase was made through the ARK Innovation ETF, or ARKK. At the close of the first trading day, SpaceX accounted for 3.28% of the fund's portfolio.

The market has interpreted the buy as a rotation within risk assets. While Bitcoin is also considered a high-beta asset, investor attention has recently shifted to listed AI and space-related companies such as SpaceX. OpenAI and Anthropic are also pursuing IPOs, which could further lift institutional demand for innovation-led growth stocks.

"Risk capital is finite," CoinDesk said. The outlet said that even Wood, one of the best-known Bitcoin bulls, is rotating money into SpaceX instead of adding to crypto holdings, signaling that funds may continue to leave the digital-asset market in the short term.

In its internal model, Ark Invest estimates SpaceX's valuation at $2.5 trillion by 2030. In a bull-case scenario, it puts the company's value at about $3.1 trillion. The forecast is based on SpaceX's $350 billion private-market valuation in 2024.

Still, Ark Invest remains one of the most prominent Bitcoin bulls. The firm manages a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, and Wood has said for years that Bitcoin could rise above $1 million over the long term.

The market expects SpaceX's strong listing debut to support sentiment across innovation growth stocks more broadly. In the short term, however, it could pull some risk capital from crypto markets. With Bitcoin attempting to rebound near $65,000, the shift toward AI and space themes may limit a recovery in altcoin flows.