Key highlights:
- ARK Invest brought its $1.3B ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX) onto Ethereum via Securitize, with top holdings including SpaceX, Kalshi, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Stripe
- Tokenization changes infrastructure, not liquidity: KYC required, USDC funding (2% fee), and quarterly repurchase windows capped at 5% of shares
- The tokenized RWA market has hit $40B, alongside the SEC’s new 5-year innovation exemption for tokenized securities venues
ARK Invest, the investment firm founded by Cathie Wood, has brought its $1.3 billion ARK Venture Fund onto the Ethereum blockchain, giving eligible investors access to a portfolio that includes private technology companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Stripe.
The launch, announced through a partnership with tokenization platform Securitize, marks ARK Invest’s first move to put an investment fund on a blockchain.
Rather than creating a new fund, ARK is taking an existing investment vehicle and using blockchain infrastructure to represent its shares digitally. The fund trades under the ticker ARKVX, with eligible investors receiving blockchain-based tokens representing their ownership in the fund.
What does ARK’s $1.3 billion fund on Ethereum mean for investors?
To understand what ARK is changing, it helps to start with what investors are actually buying.
The ARK Venture Fund is an actively managed, closed-end interval fund launched in 2022. It invests in companies developing technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, financial technology, and blockchain.
The fund gives investors exposure to a mix of private and publicly traded companies that can be difficult to access directly. Its portfolio includes OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, and Databricks, among other technology businesses.
As of June 30, 2026, the fund had $1.3 billion in net assets across its share classes.
Notably, its portfolio has also continued to evolve. As at the time of reporting, SpaceX was the largest disclosed holding as of August 31, representing 7.54% of the portfolio, followed by Kalshi at 5.81% and Ayar Labs at 5.65%.
The blockchain component comes on top of this existing structure. Instead of investors holding their ARKVX shares only through traditional financial infrastructure, Securitize will issue blockchain-based tokens that represent those fund shares.
Ethereum will initially host the tokenized shares, while Securitize handles the issuance and investor experience.
That means the token is effectively a digital representation of an investor’s interest in ARKVX. It does not give the holder direct ownership of the companies sitting inside the fund.
An investor who receives a tokenized ARKVX share therefore does not suddenly own a piece of OpenAI, Anthropic, or Stripe directly. Their exposure still comes through the ARK Venture Fund, which owns or holds the relevant investments as part of its portfolio.
This distinction is important because the move is less about putting individual private companies on a blockchain and more about changing the infrastructure used to represent ownership of an investment fund.
For ARK, that creates a bridge between traditional asset management and blockchain-based financial infrastructure. The fund continues to be actively managed, but its shares can now be represented and administered using blockchain technology.
Tokenized ARKVX is not as liquid as a crypto token
Putting ARKVX on Ethereum does not make it as liquid as a cryptocurrency. Investors cannot simply buy the token on a decentralized exchange and sell it whenever they want.
The offering builds on ARK Invest’s relationship with Securitize, which handles the tokenized shares. ARK invested in Securitize in October 2025 as the firms explored tokenized securities and regulated investment products.
Investors must complete identity and eligibility checks and register an approved wallet before purchasing ARKVX. Subscriptions are funded with USDC, while Securitize charges a 2% transaction fee before shares are priced at net asset value, or NAV.
Investors commit funds before the daily NAV is determined, after which shares are priced and delivered through the platform. Subscription requests and token transfers are recorded on-chain.
The SEC approved the tokenized share class on September 21, allowing the shares to trade on alternative trading systems and other eligible venues. However, the approval does not guarantee an active secondary market.
Securitize warns that investors may not be able to sell when they want. ARKVX remains an interval fund, offering quarterly repurchases of up to 5% of outstanding shares at NAV. Requests can be prorated if demand exceeds the available amount.
Tokenization therefore changes how ARKVX shares are represented and transferred, but not the fund’s underlying liquidity structure.
Investors still access their capital through scheduled repurchase windows rather than continuous trading.
ARK’s tokenized fund arrives as the $39 billion RWA market takes off
The launch also arrives as US regulators consider broader changes to accommodate blockchain-based securities.
The SEC recently introduced a five-year innovation exemption for qualifying tokenized securities venues, allowing eligible platforms to trade tokenized national market system stocks under specified conditions without being treated as traditional exchanges.
Meanwhile, tokenized real-world assets have grown rapidly. Data from RWA.xyz put the value of tokenized real-world assets at roughly $40 billion, representing growth of more than 400% since the start of 2025.
That remains small compared with the trillions of dollars held in conventional mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.
Supporters argue that blockchain-based infrastructure could reduce settlement times and operating costs while making investment products easier to distribute.
However, the International Monetary Fund has warned that tokenization could amplify financial instability if automated transactions and interconnected systems transmit shocks across markets.
Source:: Cathie Wood Puts ARK Venture Fund on Ethereum With Exposure to OpenAI, Anthropic, and Stripe