Cathie Wood is putting one of her investment funds on the blockchain for the first time, deepening her ties to the growing world of tokenized assets. The $1.3 billion ARK Venture Fund, launched in 2022, is a closed-end interval fund investing in public and private companies like Anthropic, Kalshi Inc., Elon Musk’s Space X, and Stripe Inc. The fund will be moved to the blockchain by Securitize Corp., a recently public tokenization platform in which ARK Invest has a stake, and will be available on Ethereum. Tom Staudt, president and chief operating officer of ARK Invest, called the move a milestone years in the making, citing the lack of global accessibility in interval funds as a key motivator.

He emphasized this is the first step toward tokenizing many of ARK’s funds, aligning with a broader trend among major financial firms adopting blockchain for traditional assets. The value of tokenized real-world assets has surged over 400% since early 2025 to roughly $39 billion, per RWA.xyz, though still dwarfed by mutual funds and ETFs. Advocates highlight benefits like faster settlement, lower costs, fractional trading, and 24/7 access, while critics, including the IMF, warn of potential systemic risks.

Staudt acknowledged risks but called tokenization an “inevitable outcome,” urging asset managers to prepare business plans for this evolving space.