ARK Invest purchased nearly 3.3 million shares of SpaceX (SPCX) on the day of the largest IPO in history, building a stake worth more than $500 million by the close. Priced at $135, shares ended the first day at $160.95, a gain of 19.2%.
To fund the purchase, Cathie Wood's firm liquidated about $280 million in stocks during the week before the listing, then sold another roughly 948,000 shares across 13 companies—including Advanced Micro Devices, Roku and Baidu—on IPO day, totaling at least $48 million.
ARKK Leads Buying, SpaceX Hits 3.28% of Portfolio
The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) did the bulk of the buying, ending the day with SpaceX at 3.28% of its holdings. A first-day pop of nearly 20% on the largest IPO signals institutions are again chasing high-beta innovation risk. While bitcoin remains among the highest-beta assets, the hottest trade is now shifting to AI and space listings—OpenAI and Anthropic have also filed to go public.
Risk capital is finite. When even a noted bitcoin bull like Wood rotates into space stocks rather than adding to crypto, it suggests funds may keep flowing out of crypto markets in the near term. ARK's model targets a $2.5 trillion enterprise value for SpaceX by 2030, with a bull case near $3.1 trillion, up from a $350 billion private valuation in 2024.
Bitcoin Bull Shifts Focus, Crypto Faces Outflow Risk
ARK also runs a spot bitcoin ETF, and Wood has been one of the most vocal institutional bitcoin bulls, with long-term price targets in seven figures. Still, this massive reallocation shows that even committed crypto supporters are grabbing what they see as 'sure bets' in AI and space, potentially draining liquidity from digital assets in the short term.