ARK Tokenizes Its $1.3 Billion Venture Fund on Ethereum

ARK Invest on September 24, 2026 tokenized the ARK Venture Fund on Ethereum through Securitize. The interval fund, ticker ARKVX, held $1.3 billion in net assets on June 30, 2026.

Eligible investors receive onchain interests in a book that still holds OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, and SpaceX, after identity checks and a $500 minimum paid in USDC.

Fund Interests Move Onto Ethereum First

ARK Invest and Securitize tokenized the ARK Venture Fund in a Miami announcement that casts the product as the next phase of a partnership built in 2025. It is the first ARK fund to sit on a public chain. Ethereum is the launch network, and the firms said other networks may follow.

Securitize Corp., listed on the NYSE as SECZ, handles onchain issuance and the investor experience. ARK Investment Management LLC still picks the stocks and the private names. The token is a record of a claim on that fund, not a sliced share of any company inside it.

Cathie Wood, founder, CEO, and CIO of ARK Invest, tied the launch to a long-running bet that markets themselves would move onchain.

Tokenizing the ARK Venture Fund puts our conviction in the evolution, if not revolution, of capital markets into practice. Based on our research, tokenization has the potential to reshape fundamentally the way that investors access and participate in both private and public financial markets.

Cathie Wood, Founder, CEO and CIO of ARK Invest, in the September 24 announcement

The firm’s funds account posted a shorter version of the same thesis the same day.

https://x.com/ARK_Funds/status/2103116260531703849

Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize, described the structure as one fund that packages exposure to several private technology companies. Buyers get fund-level exposure rather than direct ownership of the underlying private-company shares.

A $500 Ticket and a Quarterly 5% Gate

The onchain class does not turn ARKVX into an exchange-traded fund. It remains a registered closed-end interval fund. Securitize’s product page sets a $500 minimum and USDC funding after identity checks and a whitelisted wallet. Tokens are described as backed one-to-one by fund shares.

The cash cost of getting in is still a subscription fee, and the cash path for getting out is still a tender. NAV on September 24, 2026 was $60.49.

ARKVX TOKEN TERMS

That 5% cap is the gate that marketing copy about round-the-clock trading keeps skipping. If tender requests run past the cap, the fund can cut orders back. A token that can sit in an approved wallet does not create a public market when the contract exit is still a quarterly window.

The mix on the Securitize page is 62% private and 38% public, with technology at 35.7%, consumer at 23.5%, and industrials at 21.7%. Those weights move. The interval rules do not.

What the September 21 Order Changed for ARKVX

The legal paper that made the tokenized class possible is not the stock-token relief the SEC issued four days earlier. On September 21, 2026, the Commission issued a September 21 exemptive order under the Investment Company Act for ARK Venture Fund and ARK Investment Management LLC, file 812-16031, effective immediately.

That order amends earlier multi-class relief so the same vehicle may offer an unlisted class, a class that can list on a national securities exchange, and a class of tokenized shares that may trade on one or more alternative trading systems or be quoted on other permitted mediums. Permission to offer those classes is not proof they already trade.

THE PATH TO THE TOKENIZED CLASS

1. September 23, 2022: The ARK Venture Fund opens as a closed-end interval fund.
2. October 7, 2025: Securitize announces a strategic investment from ARK Invest.
3. May 20, 2026: ARK Venture Fund and ARK Investment Management LLC file for amended exemptive relief, with later amendments on June 11 and August 7.
4. September 17, 2026: The SEC issues a five-year Innovation Exemption for tokenized NMS stocks on permissioned venues.
5. September 21, 2026: The SEC grants ARK’s order for exchange-listed and tokenized share classes.
6. September 24, 2026: ARK and Securitize launch tokenized ARKVX on Ethereum.

Conditions attached to the ARK order are specific. The fund must post the prior business day’s net asset value on a public website each business day, for free. It must not put an early withdrawal charge on Exchange Class or Tokenized Class shares. It must warn that trades on an exchange, an ATS, or peer-to-peer can print above or below NAV. Wallets that would hold the tokenized class need anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer reviews. NAV-for-NAV switches between classes are allowed, not required.

ORDER CONDITIONS ON THE NEW CLASSES

• Daily NAV: Prior-day net asset value must appear prominently on a public website each business day.
• No early exit fee: Exchange Class and Tokenized Class shares cannot carry an early withdrawal charge.
• Price warning: The fund must disclose that secondary trades may occur away from NAV.
• Wallet checks: Every wallet that would hold Tokenized Class shares needs AML and KYC review.
• Class costs: Costs tied to one class stay with that class, with a narrow exception for exchange-meeting expenses.

The September 17 Innovation Exemption for tokenized stocks is a different instrument. It gives Tokenized Securities Venues a temporary pass from the Exchange Act definition of an exchange so they can run permissioned automated market makers in tokenized NMS stock. Chairman Paul S. Atkins called it a step toward onchain trading of certain tokenized stocks. ARKVX is an interval fund, not NMS stock, so that order is weather around the launch, not the license for it.

SpaceX, Kalshi, and a 5.26% OpenAI Line

The names that travel with this product are real, and they are also a slice of a moving book. ARK’s August 31, 2026 holdings list puts SpaceX first at 7.54%, after the company listed in the second quarter. OpenAI is fourth at 5.26%. Anthropic is sixth at 3.86%. Databricks, which appeared in the launch copy, is 2.06%.

TOP ARKVX HOLDINGS, AUG. 31

ARK’s own second-quarter note is the cleanest look at why those names sell. The fund returned 20.21% in the quarter, against 15.20% for the S&P 500 and 13.76% for the MSCI World Index. SpaceX and Anthropic led the gain. ARK said Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate surpassed $47 billion, up from about $9 billion at the end of 2025. SpaceX, in ARK’s telling, completed a public debut in that quarter and later sold $25 billion of unsecured senior notes.

During the same quarter, assets rose to $1.3 billion from $711 million, with $400 million of net inflows. New private lines included Stripe, Cellares, and Wonder. New public lines included Alphabet and Nvidia. Holdings are subject to change, which is the quiet clause under every OpenAI headline.

How Securitize Turns a Stake Into Distribution

Securitize is not a vendor ARK discovered last week. On October 7, 2025, the tokenization firm announced a strategic investment from ARK Invest, aimed at regulated tokenized securities and programmable ownership. Fund disclosures around that period put the ARK Venture Fund’s stake at about $10 million, or 3.25% of then-assets. By August 31, 2026, Securitize was still in the book at 0.65%.

That loop is the part of the story that does not fit on a launch graphic. ARK is a client, a shareholder, and, through ARKVX, a holder of the platform that now issues the fund’s onchain class. Domingo’s firm collects the issuance and investor-experience work. ARK keeps the portfolio process. SECZ is the ticker that moves if the market decides the distribution pipe is the product.

When Securitize went public, ARK was already on a cap table that also included BlackRock, Blockchain Capital, Hamilton Lane, Jump Crypto, and Morgan Stanley Investment Management. BlackRock’s BUIDL money-market product is the easy comparison everyone reaches for, because Treasuries have a published yield and a deep cash market. A venture interval fund has marks, lockups, and a 5% tender. Putting that on Ethereum tests the hard case, not the cash-like case.

The Interval Rules Travel With the Token

Launch-day copy already treats 24/7 trading of OpenAI as the thing that shipped. It did not. The September 24 product is a permissioned digital security: KYC, an allowlisted wallet, a 2% fee on the way in, and a quarterly cap on the way out. Secondary trading among eligible holders is something the September 21 order allows. The launch itself did not make the interests freely tradable.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The asset: Tokenized interests in ARKVX, backed one-to-one by fund shares, issued on Ethereum through Securitize.
• The buyer: An eligible investor who passes identity checks and a wallet whitelist, with a $500 minimum in USDC.
• The exit: Quarterly repurchase offers of up to 5% of outstanding shares at NAV, with proration if demand runs hot.
• The license: SEC order IC-36333, dated September 21, 2026, covering unlisted, listed, and tokenized classes of the same fund.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Live ATS trading: The order permits tokenized shares to trade on alternative trading systems; the firms have not shown that a public secondary book is open.
• An exchange class: A listed class is allowed. A listing date is not on the table.
• Other chains: Additional networks “may follow.” None is named as live.
• 24/7 OpenAI stock: No token in this launch is a share of OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, or Databricks.

Measure the thing by wallets, tenders, and whether anyone actually trades the token away from NAV. Headline assets of $1.3 billion already sat in the fund before a single onchain unit existed. The wrapper can still matter for settlement, record-keeping, and a future ATS. It does not rewrite private-company marks, and it does not turn a quarterly gate into a round-the-clock market.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Tokenized ARKVX Give Investors OpenAI or Anthropic Shares?

No. The token is a claim on the registered fund, not a cap-table line at any portfolio company, and it cannot be redeemed for OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, or Databricks stock. Managers can change the mix, and the August 31, 2026 list even carries a separate 0.27% sleeve labeled Studio Type One Soul Cycle II LLC (invested in OpenAI) beside the main 5.26% OpenAI line.

Can Other Fund Managers Rely on ARK’s September 21 Order?

No. A sponsor has to seek its own exemptive order from SEC staff. ARK’s relief can be used for its future interval and tender offer funds once it is in hand, which is why the order is a template for ARK, not a blanket for the industry.

Does the SEC Innovation Exemption Cover ARKVX?

No. The Innovation Exemption issued on September 17, 2026 lets Tokenized Securities Venues trade tokenized NMS stocks in permissioned automated market-maker pools until September 17, 2031. ARKVX is a registered interval fund, so that relief is market context rather than this product’s license; the fund’s own paper is the September 21 Investment Company Act order.

What Happens If ARKVX Repurchase Requests Exceed 5%?

The fund may prorate. An investor who wants cash can be filled only in part and then wait for a later quarterly window, and an unfilled tender does not turn into a right to dump the token on a public market at NAV.

Do Tokenized ARKVX Shares Carry an Early Withdrawal Charge?

The September 21 order says the fund must not impose any early withdrawal charge on Exchange Class or Tokenized Class shares. The 2% fee still applies at subscription, taken before units are priced at NAV, which is a cost of getting in rather than a charge for leaving those two classes.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of a tokenized investment product and related SEC orders, and it is for information only. It is not investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold ARKVX, Securitize, Ethereum, USDC, or any other security or cryptoasset. Readers should consult a licensed financial adviser or securities attorney who can review eligibility, fees, liquidity limits, and tax treatment for their own situation before acting. Figures, holdings, NAV, and product status come from the cited fund pages, filings, and company materials as of this article’s date and can change with markets, tenders, and further regulatory action.