Cathie Wood’s Ark Tops Up Robinhood Stake, Expanding Crypto Bet
Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has added a fresh slug of Robinhood stock, a move that lands at the crossroads of crypto, tokenization, and retail trading — and one that’s being hyped in ways the numbers don’t quite support.
Ark’s flagship ARK Innovation ETF and the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF bought a combined 167,489 shares of Robinhood Markets this week, a ticket worth in the ballpark of $21–22 million based on recent prices. The purchase follows a year in which Ark has tilted toward crypto-linked names and market-structure plays, a basket that already includes Coinbase and privately held Bullish. Robinhood shares were trading near $135 late Thursday in London hours, with intraday volume north of 20 million.
First, the reality check. Social posts and breathless headlines claiming Robinhood is now a roughly one-fifth weight in Ark’s funds don’t hold up. Recent holdings snapshots put the broker at roughly 4–5% in ARKK and a similar range in ARKW. That still places the stock comfortably within top-tier positions but far from a single-name bet that would dominate either portfolio. In other words, it’s a notable add, not a portfolio takeover.
Why now? Because Robinhood in 2025 looks less like a pure U.S. retail broker and more like a cross-border backbone. The company closed its in June, giving it an institutional platform footprint and fresh routes into market-maker and crypto-native flows. In May, it struck a deal to purchase Canada’s WonderFi, extending its reach into a usage and on-ramps remain lively; that transaction is slated to close in the second half, subject to approvals.
Over the summer, for EU users and teased a layer-2 network built on Arbitrum — the kind of infrastructure project that, if executed well, could reduce on-chain costs and open new product surfaces. This week, it added BNB trading, broadening the menu for active crypto clients.
The operating data back up the pivot. Robinhood reported around $28–$28.3 billion in crypto notional in the second quarter, up roughly a third year-on-year, with crypto revenue tracking higher alongside volumes and listings. Bitstamp contributes an institutional venue and a pipeline of clients that sit outside Robinhood’s classic U.S. retail base, while WonderFi brings a Canadian footprint that can be cross-sold into once the deal closes. Layer on the tokenization push in Europe, and the firm is stitching together consumer, institutional, and on-chain pipes that could diversify activity beyond standard options and stock trading.
For Ark, the thesis is straightforward: Robinhood is a liquid way to play rising crypto throughput, tokenized assets, and the monetization of new rails — all inside the wrapper of a household consumer brand. The fund group has been open about its preference for market-structure beneficiaries that capture the economics of trading volume, rather than chasing every token rally. In that context, topping up HOOD sits neatly alongside prior and infrastructure.
There are caveats. The leap from “broker with crypto” to “platform with global rails” still runs through regulators, integration work, and the hard slog of product execution. Tokenized stocks in the EU will be tested on transparency, custody, investor protection, and secondary-market plumbing. A Robinhood layer-2 won’t matter unless it actually lowers costs or unlocks new use cases for a large user base. And while Bitstamp widens the aperture, it also introduces complexity around client onboarding, liquidity fragmentation, and risk controls across jurisdictions.
Another point to watch is whether the headline trade converts into sustained portfolio weight. A one-day purchase can grab attention, but a climb toward the top five in ARKK or ARKW would speak louder about conviction. Conversely, if HOOD drifts back toward mid-pack in coming weeks, the purchase will look more like a tactical add into a strong tape than a step-change in Ark’s positioning.
For traders, the near-term markers are clear: the WonderFi close and ahead integration signals; progress updates on the tokenization program and any regulatory pushback; road-testing of the Arbitrum-based network; and whether fresh listings like BNB actually translate into higher volumes and spread capture. On the fund side, daily Ark disclosures will show whether the HOOD stake builds or stalls.
Strip away the noise and this week’s move reads as calculated, not sensational. Ark added to a name that fits its running theme — market-structure leverage to crypto and tokenization — while avoiding a single-stock outsized wager. Robinhood, for its part, keeps threading new pipes across regions and asset types. If those pipes carry more traffic in the back half of the year, both sides will look prescient. If not, the trade will fade into the churn of a busy 2025 deal calendar.
