Ark Invest purchased over $500 million in SpaceX shares during the company’s record-breaking IPO day. Data indicates that these acquisitions were likely financed by liquidating other investments. Notably, ARK is a strong advocate for bitcoin, projecting a million-dollar price target by 2030.

— On the day of SpaceX’s historic IPO, Cathie Wood’s firm accumulated nearly 3.3 million shares valued at more than $500 million.

— In the days leading up to the IPO, ARK sold more than $325 million worth of stock from at least 13 different companies.

— ARK’s strategic move to redirect risk capital from cryptocurrencies to high-growth firms like SpaceX, coupled with its ambitious $2.5 trillion valuation forecast for the company by 2030, highlights a trend among institutional investors favoring AI and space IPOs over digital currencies in the short term.

ARK Invest bought close to 3.3 million shares of SpaceX (SPCX) as Elon Musk’s company made its debut in the largest IPO ever on Friday, resulting in a stake worth over $500 million by the end of the trading day.

The shares, initially priced at $135, closed at $160.95, marking a rise of more than 19.2% on their first trading day.

In the week prior to the listing, the Cathie Wood-led firm liquidated nearly $280 million in stocks, and on Friday alone, sold approximately 948,000 shares across 13 companies, totaling at least $48 million. This included stakes in Advanced Micro Devices, Roku, and Baidu, as detailed in daily email updates during this period.

The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) was responsible for the majority of the acquisitions, concluding the day with SpaceX representing 3.28% of its total portfolio.

The nearly 20% surge on the first day of trading for the largest IPO in history indicates that institutional investors are once again willing to take on high-beta innovation risks. While bitcoin remains the highest-beta asset, the market’s current hottest trend is a surge of AI and space-related IPOs, with companies like OpenAI and Anthropic also filing to go public.

With a finite amount of risk capital available, Cathie Wood’s pivot towards investments in AI and space rather than increasing her crypto holdings suggests that capital is likely to continue flowing out of crypto markets in the short term.

ARK’s projections estimate a $2.5 trillion enterprise value for SpaceX by 2030, with an optimistic scenario reaching nearly $3.1 trillion, based on the company’s private valuation of $350 billion in 2024.

ARK also manages a spot bitcoin ETF and Wood has been one of the most prominent institutional bitcoin advocates, with long-term price targets extending into seven figures.