ARK Invest Partners with Securitize to Tokenize Actively Managed Closed-End Interval Fund, Tokenized Shares Initially Issued on Ethereum
ARK Invest and Securitize Corp, which is listed on the NYSE, announced the tokenization of the actively managed closed-end interval fund Ark Venture Fund (ARKVX). The tokenized shares will initially be issued on Ethereum, with Securitize responsible for on-chain issuance and investor processes, potentially expanding to other chains in the future. Cathie Wood stated this is a realization of the judgment that "capital markets are evolving, even revolutionizing" into products.
The fund itself is a SEC-registered interval fund, investing in private and public companies related to disruptive innovation, with holdings subject to change. The announcement specifically mentions OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, and Databricks; Securitize's product page lists the top ten holdings as of June 30, 2026, including SpaceX at 13.8%, OpenAI at 6.3%, Anthropic at 4.6%, Stripe at 4.4%, Tenstorrent at 3.5%, Ayar Labs at 3.2%, Kalshi at 2.9%, and Replit at 2.6%. The net assets during the same period are approximately $1.3 billion, with about 62% in private equity and 38% in public equity. Class D's net return for the second quarter is 20.35%, and the year-to-date return is 26.71%. The net asset value before the token launch is approximately $60.49 per share.
The on-chain asset is a fund share certificate, not the stocks of OpenAI or SpaceX themselves. Each token corresponds 1:1 to the ARKVX shares held in custody by BNY Mellon, with holdings recorded in the investor's whitelist wallet or platform vault. The minimum investment is $500, and after completing identity and accredited investor verification, payments are made in USDC; a 2% subscription fee is deducted before net asset value settlement. Redemptions will still follow interval fund rules: quarterly repurchases, with a single quarter limit of about 5% of issued shares, with excess distributed proportionally. Some reports indicate that the platform plans to display daily net values and attempt on-chain secondary trading, while the official page still states liquidity will be the same as the original fund's quarterly repurchase.
The relationship between the two parties predates this issuance. In October 2025, ARK made a strategic investment in Securitize, disclosing about $10 million and holding convertible bonds maturing in 2028 with a coupon of 5%; Securitize went public on the NYSE in July that year and has also acted as a transfer agent for tokenized products like BlackRock's BUIDL, collaborating with Apollo, KKR, Hamilton Lane, VanEck, and BNY. In August, ARK applied to the SEC for a share class recorded on a distributed ledger, which could facilitate ATS or peer-to-peer transfers via whitelist wallets.
Mechanically, investors are buying indirect exposure to a private tech basket using stablecoins, while selling shares that have higher thresholds and slower settlements in traditional subscription channels. The event is driven by the issuer repackaging existing SEC products, not breaking down unlisted equity for sale. Funds flow from bank subscription channels to Ethereum block space, custodians, and transfer agents; benefiting are Securitize's issuance and compliance pipeline, Ethereum transaction fees, and ARK's expanded distribution radius, while traditional share holders still face quarterly lock-up periods — tokens do not create new underlying liquidity, only change the method of ownership registration.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Cathie Wood founded ARK in 2014, starting with actively managed innovative theme ETFs, and reopened this interval fund in September 2022, specifically to capture private equity that ETFs cannot access. The fund's size has grown from about $300 million to $1.3 billion by mid-2026, with a one-year return reaching 84.8%. In October 2025, ARK invested about $10 million in Securitize, effectively buying the pipeline before sending its own products through it. Securitize was established in 2017, led by CEO Carlos Domingo, initially providing on-chain shares for Exodus, then facilitating tokenized treasury fund share transfers for BlackRock's BUIDL, and went public in July 2026. The approach is "first invest in infrastructure, then place flagship products on that infrastructure," unlike on-chain funds that only issue white papers.
Capital mobilization occurs at three levels: ARK productizes private equity quotas using management fees and performance; Securitize collects pipeline fees through compliant issuance, whitelisting, and custody interfaces; BNY Mellon continues to safeguard shares, with only one equity reflected on-chain. Subscriptions use USDC, and settlements follow the ERC-7540 asynchronous vault, indicating that stablecoins are being treated as payment tracks for fund shares, rather than breaking down SpaceX equity into freely tradable tokens. The quarterly 5% repurchase limit remains unchanged, meaning tokenization addresses entry and registration, not exit. ARK also holds equity in Kalshi, while New York State has just declared prediction markets illegal gambling, adding regulatory risk to the fund's portfolio.
In comparison to BlackRock's BUIDL for treasury money market funds, and Hamilton Lane and KKR for tokenized private equity shares: both are repackaging existing registered products with a new registration system, rather than turning unlisted companies into public stocks. The industry is in a phase of "compliance packaging expansion" rather than "free circulation of private equity." The $500 threshold reduces friction for checking accounts entering ARKVX but does not lower transfer restrictions in OpenAI's shareholder agreement. Those truly seeking secondary liquidity still need to wait for ATS or whitelist markets, and what is bought and sold are fund certificates, with discounts or premiums potentially arising.
The structural judgment belongs to the reconstruction of the industrial chain. The pricing power of private tech equity remains with the company's financing rounds and the interval fund's net asset value committee, with on-chain only reconstructing the subscription, transfer, and display layers. The mechanism is: when underlying assets cannot circulate on-chain, value is embedded in transfer agents, custodians, stablecoin settlements, and public chain fees; as more interval funds replicate this pipeline, competition shifts from "who can invest in OpenAI" to "who can sell the already invested portfolio using compliant tokens to more fragmented accredited capital." Tokenization is a distribution revolution, not an asset revolution.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
The on-chain asset is a certificate, not the company itself.
Lowering the subscription threshold does not equal opening the exit valve.
Buying the pipeline first and then placing products is cheaper than issuing tokens first and then finding custody.