Coinbase stock (COIN) recorded a surge of about 60% over the previous two weeks, reaching more than $84 per share, riding the tide of a larger market climb.
The US exchange’s stocks are on the rise again against the backdrop of a serious financial crisis in the country and the accompanying rush of investors to digital currencies such as Bitcoin (BTC).
Meanwhile, it appears that the CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong is dumping and taking profits from the shares price surge, according to crypto enthusiast and Twitter user Bitfinex’ed, who shared that the Coinbase head has lately been dumping tens of thousands of COIN shares.
Brian Armstrong Dumps COIN
The Twitter user shared an image that included a full analysis of the stocks Brian Armstrong sold.
Apparently, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, isn't very confident in Coinbase stock.
He's been dumping tens of thousands of shares.
That's the nice thing about stocks, unlike crypto, insiders have to tell you when they're dumping. pic.twitter.com/Yn3pypUF34
— Bitfinex’ed 🔥🐧 Κασσάνδρα 🏺 (@Bitfinexed) March 21, 2023
The first batch of shares was sold on March 3. 11,415 COINs are exchanged for $63.8885 in the first transaction based on the image, totaling $729,287. Three further significant share transactions of 14.700, 3.200, and 400 shares were made on the same day at prices of $64.5, $65.6, and $66.5, respectively.
The crypto executive went on to sell eleven additional COINs by mid-March. In total, he has sold 59,500 shares since March 3 at an average price of $58.74. As a result, he profited from the selling of his shares to the extent of $3.49 million.
Charts show that COIN’s value has lately soared as Armstrong sells enormous amounts of shares.
Ark Invest Takes Profit From Coinbase Stocks
Moreover, Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest, a growth investor, ended COIN’s purchasing move by selling 160,887 shares of the crypto exchange, valued at around $13.5 million at the time of publication.
ARK made a number of purchases of Coinbase’s stock during the most recent crypto winter. Nevertheless, COIN underperformed both bitcoin and ether in 2022, and its shares fell 86% over the year.
Early in March, ARK made its most recent acquisition of COIN when it bought more than 350,000 shares of Coinbase, including 301,437 shares for its ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) and 52,525 shares for its Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW), all of which was for $22 million.
The stock has been rising since March 10th, but the announcement about the expansion of Brazil provided an additional increase to its price.
The US cryptocurrency exchange disclosed cooperation with Pix, which is run by the Central Bank of Brazil, to “localize” its app and enable users to trade cryptocurrencies for fiat there.
Even though COIN has increased by around 150% YTD, the stock is still down 54% from its year-ago level. It was launched in April 2021 for $342 and hasn’t quite surpassed that price since the bull market’s peak in November 2021.
