ARK tokenizes its venture fund on Ethereum; OpenAI and Anthropic were about 5% of it in its last report

Cathie Wood's ARK Invest will issue tokenized interests in its ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX) using infrastructure from Securitize, CoinDesk reported on Thursday. The tokens launch first on Ethereum, with other networks possibly to follow. Securitize plans to publish a daily net asset value and let the tokens trade on blockchain-based markets. Bloomberg's report on the deal carried the headline that the fund would "trade 24/7."

The pitch is exposure to private AI companies. CoinDesk named OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe and Databricks among the fund's holdings, and Securitize chief executive Carlos Domingo told CoinDesk TV that investors who cannot pick an AI winner "get both of them in a diversified pool."

What the fund actually holds

ARK's last detailed holdings list is in the fund's semi-annual report to the SEC, as of Jan. 31, 2026. At that date the fund had net assets of $557.6 million. Our tally of the positions, as a share of net assets:

So the two names in the headline were about 5.3% of the fund combined at the last filing. Stripe did not appear in the January schedule, so it may be a newer position; ARK has not published an updated list in a filing we could find. Values will have moved since January, and the fund has grown, so treat these weights as a snapshot, not today's mix.

The thing the "24/7" framing leaves out

Tokenizing the fund does not make its holdings liquid. As CoinDesk noted, the underlying companies stay private. The filing puts numbers on that:

• 84% of the fund ($469.9 million) was in restricted securities classified as Level 3, meaning ARK values them with its own models rather than a market price.
• ARKVX is an interval fund. It offers to buy back about 5% of shares each quarter at net asset value. A token trading around the clock does not change how much cash the fund itself will pay out.
• The Class D shares carried net expenses of 2.90% a year after ARK's fee waivers, 3.73% before them.

That means a token that trades between investors can drift away from the daily NAV, and there is no guarantee a buyer will be there at the NAV price. Whether the on-chain market prices it at a premium or a discount is the thing to watch once it launches.

There is also a relationship worth knowing. ARK made a strategic investment in Securitize last year, CoinDesk reported, and the fund's own filing shows it held a $10 million Securitize convertible note paying 5%, due 2028. In other words, the tokenization partner is also one of the fund's holdings.

Why it matters for crypto markets

Most tokenized funds so far, such as BlackRock's BUIDL and Franklin Templeton's BENJI, hold Treasuries and money-market assets, according to CoinDesk. A venture fund is a step into assets that are harder to price. It follows last week's SEC move on tokenized stocks, which we covered in our explainer on the SEC guidance.

Sources: CoinDesk; Bloomberg; ARK Venture Fund Form N-CSRS for the period ended Jan. 31, 2026. Holding weights are Chronicle calculations from the filing. This is market information, not investment advice.