Cathie Wood tokenizes billion-dollar venture fund for first time

Cathie Wood just put one of her biggest funds on the blockchain. ARK Invest announced the tokenization of its ARK Venture Fund, a closed-end interval fund with roughly $1.3 billion in net assets, marking the first time the firm has issued tokenized interests in one of its investment vehicle. The fund, which trades under the ticker ARKVX, will have its tokenized shares issued on Ethereum through Securitize’s infrastructure. Investors who pass KYC and AML checks can subscribe using USDC with a minimum buy-in of just $500, a remarkably low entry point for a fund that holds stakes in SpaceX, OpenAI, and Stripe. What the deal actually looks like The tokenized interests represent the same rights as traditional shares in the fund. BNY Mellon continues to handle custody, and the quarterly liquidity feature stays intact, with up to 5% of shares eligible for repurchase each quarter under the fund’s interval structure. There’s a 2% subscription fee baked in. ARK has also flagged potential expansion to other blockchain networks down the line, though Ethereum gets the first shot. One important caveat: there is no secondary market for trading these tokenized interests. Investors are still locked...