Coinbase Stock Drops From Record High. Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation Sold 33,000 Shares.

Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF sold Coinbase shares just as they hit a record high. (Lam Yik/Bloomberg)

Coinbase Global stock was one of the worst performers in the on Friday, just a day after it hit a record high, and after a couple major shareholders sold a portion of their holdings.

Shares of the cryptocurrency exchange have soared more than 60% over the last 12 months and reached a record close of $375.07 on Thursday. But the stock shed some gains Friday, falling 5.1% to $355.98.

It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted the sell-off, though profit-taking is always the suspicion for a stock that has reached new heights. Investors could also be following the lead of at least two influential Coinbase shareholders who sold holdings earlier in the week.

Cathie Wood’s influential ARK Innovation exchanged-traded fund sold 33,363 shares on Thursday—roughly $12.5 million based on the session’s closing price—according to Ark Invest’s daily trading file. Coinbase still is the ETF’s largest holding, at 9.8% of the fund, but Wood’s trades tend to make a splash among investors.

Wednesday, the living trust of Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong sold $121.9 million in shares and announced another $42.7 million to be sold Thursday, per a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Armstrong’s sales are part of a Rule 10b5-1 plan filed with the SEC in August 2024, which allows for the potential sale of up to 3,750,000 shares of class A common stock issuable upon the conversion of shares of the Class B common stock owned by The Brian Armstrong Living Trust. Such plans automatically execute trades according to certain price, volume, and timing conditions, as Barron’s reported in November.

Ark Invest and Coinbase didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Write to Nate Wolf at nate.wolf@barrons.com