Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest has added another block of Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) shares to its portfolio, extending one of the firm’s most persistent dip-buying campaigns of 2026 even as the stablecoin issuer’s stock continues to bleed.
According to ARK’s daily trade notification dated July 14, the firm purchased a combined 220,012 CRCL shares across three of its actively managed ETFs. The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) took the largest slice with 159,517 shares, equal to 0.1173% of the fund.
The ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) added 42,400 shares, or 0.12% of its portfolio, while the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF) picked up 18,095 shares, representing 0.1492% of the fund.
At Tuesday’s closing price of $63.22, the purchase is worth approximately $13.9 million. Notably, the session itself told a story of dip buyers stepping in. CRCL opened at $61.65, sank as low as $59.29, within striking distance of its all-time low, and then reversed to finish 0.35% higher on above-average volume.
A Conviction Month for Cathie Wood
Tuesday’s buy is ARK’s third Circle purchase in two weeks. The firm scooped up 287,609 shares worth about $17.8 million on July 1 as the stock cratered to $61.95, then followed with another 217,896 shares worth roughly $13.7 million on July 9, a session in which it also trimmed its Robinhood stake.
Combined, ARK has now accumulated 725,517 CRCL shares in July alone, deploying close to $45 million into the name in a single month. The push extends a broader crypto equity rotation that saw the firm adding Coinbase, Circle, Bullish, and Robinhood in late June as digital asset stocks rallied.
The July haul also sits on top of an already sizable position. ARK, which poured $373 million into Circle on its listing day back in June 2025, holds more than 4.5 million CRCL shares per its quarterly filings, keeping Circle among the largest positions across its ETF lineup.
Buying Into the Storm
The conviction is notable because Circle’s tape has been brutal. CRCL has shed more than 40% over the past month, driven largely by the launch of Open USD (OUSD), a rival dollar stablecoin backed by a coalition of more than 140 companies including Visa, Mastercard, and BlackRock.
The launch has forced the market to reprice the long-term outlook for USDC, Circle’s flagship product, and the stock’s removal from the Russell Growth Index added further selling pressure. Shares now sit near the bottom of a 52-week range of $49.90 to $262.97, down roughly 68% over the past year.
The pressure has not let up. On the same day ARK was buying, Mizuho downgraded Circle to Underperform, arguing that investors were overly optimistic about the company’s landmark regulatory win, while Baird cut its price target to $100 from $138. That regulatory win, final OCC approval on July 10 to establish its national trust bank, First National Digital Currency Bank, had briefly sent the stock surging before the gains faded.
There are still bulls in the room. Bernstein has maintained an Outperform rating with a $190 target, and the expected renewal of Circle’s USDC partnership with Coinbase in August is viewed as a potential catalyst that could clear a major overhang. Wall Street remains deeply divided, with 12-month targets spanning from $50 to $243 and an average near $127, roughly double the current price.
What Else ARK Traded on Tuesday
The July 14 trade file carried other notable moves for crypto watchers. ARKF bought 113,270 shares of Securitize (NYSE: SECZ), the tokenization firm that went public earlier this month and brought its own stock onchain on day one. The Securitize purchase amounts to 0.1195% of the fund. ARKF and ARKW also added a combined 19,029 shares of Block (NYSE: XYZ).
On the sell side, ARKK offloaded 27,742 Robinhood (HOOD) shares, extending the 85,319-share trim from the previous week, and also exited positions worth 9,742 shares of AMD and 153,191 shares of 10X Genomics. ARKF and ARKW together sold 18,278 Roku shares.
Beyond crypto and fintech, ARK bought a combined 151,433 shares of nuclear firm X-Energy across ARKK, ARKQ, and ARKX, alongside additions to Kratos Defense, WeRide, Pony AI, and Kodiak AI. Its genomics fund ARKG added Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Beam Therapeutics, Recursion, Prime Medicine, and Alamar Biosciences while cutting Twist Bioscience, Personalis, and Absci.
The Analyst Take
ARK is effectively dollar-cost averaging into a structural controversy. The firm’s Circle position is estimated to be underwater by around a third on a cost basis, yet the July buying pattern shows Wood treating the OUSD-driven selloff as a mispricing rather than a broken thesis. The next few weeks will test that view.
If the Coinbase renewal lands on favorable terms in August and OUSD adoption proves slower than feared, ARK’s $45 million July bet could mark the bottom. If USDC’s market share keeps eroding, the pain tolerance strategy gets a lot more expensive.
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