During the FTX and crypto market turmoil, Cathie Wood-led Ark Investments reportedly amped up its Coinbase (COIN) holdings via a 237,675 COIN shares acquisition, worth around $12.1 million. 

Specifically, of the 237,675 COIN shares, Ark Investment Management reportedly uncluded 207,527 extra shares to its ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), 22,416 shares to its ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW), and another 7,732 shares to its ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF).

The tech-centric investment entity’s purchase reportedly surfaced following Coinbase’ statement in response to FTX’s liquidity crisis, that it has “minimal exposure” to the now cash-strapped cryptocurrency trading platform with only $15 million on deposit to “facilitate business operations and customer trades.”

Coinbase further claimed that it possesses zero exposure to FTX’s native token – which has plummeted 84.08% since Binance disclosed details of its liquidation plan for its whole FTT holdings late on Nov. 7 – and its partner trading entity Alameda Research.

Wood’s Nov. 9 purchase reportedly occurred after a 10.84% decrease in COIN’s share price on Nov. 8, which was a foreseeable outcome follow on from the FTX controversy, per Owen Lau, a stock analyst at investment banking firm Oppenheimer. 

“While COIN has minimal exposure to FTX, before there is enough evidence that the contagion risk is contained, the pressure on crypto prices will likely weigh on COIN.”

It also went down as the investment entity’s initial trade for Coinbase since it sold off more than 1.4 million COIN shares – which had the value equivalent to $75 million – throughout ARKK, ARKF and ARKW on Jul. 26. 2022.

The major sell-off came in response to the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) carrying out investigative actions into charges of Coinbase taking part in the insider trading of unregistered securities.