SpaceX access for US$500? ARK brings venture fund on-chain
The fund is issued and recorded on blockchain, but with just one redemption window each quarter and annual operating expenses of up to 2.9%, investors must weigh the costs of limited liquidity.
A landmark deal has just emerged in the US investment industry. ARK Invest, led by Cathie Wood, and digital securities firm Securitize announced on September 24 that they had completed the blockchain migration of the flagship ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX), with tokenised fund interests to be issued and recorded on the Ethereum blockchain.
The private equity market, long seen as the preserve of institutions and high-net-worth individuals, is now being opened to a broader pool of eligible investors. By buying digital tokens representing interests in the fund, investors can gain indirect exposure to a group of unlisted technology giants with a minimum investment of US$500.
As of the end of August, the fund had total assets of about US$1.3 billion, with roughly 78% invested in private-market entities. SpaceX was its largest holding, accounting for 7.54% of the portfolio. Surprisingly, the next-largest holding was not an AI company but prediction-market platform Kalshi, at 5.81%. OpenAI and Anthropic followed at 5.26% and 3.86%, respectively. The fund also holds stakes in companies including Stripe and Databricks. In other words, it is not simply an “AI and space” fund, but a portfolio spanning a range of hard-tech and fintech sectors.
This is not a paper exercise: the product is backed by a pool of real assets. As private technology equity is recorded and transferred at scale for the first time through a public blockchain, the traditionally closed nature of the primary market is facing an unprecedented challenge.
A patient strategy that began in 2022
ARK Invest’s move was not a spur-of-the-moment decision. When the fund was launched in September 2022, ARK had already set the minimum investment at US$500 in an attempt to break down the capital barriers of the traditional venture capital industry. But blockchain technology and the regulatory environment were not yet mature, leaving the idea at the conceptual stage until this year, when it became a product available for subscription with legally recorded ownership.
Securitize, the technology infrastructure provider for the deal, is an established player in the field. In March 2024, it brought BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenised fund onto Ethereum. ARK announced a strategic investment in Securitize in October 2025, paving the way for the two companies to launch the flagship fund a year later. Following the announcement that the project had gone live, Securitize’s share price rose more than 10% at one point, reflecting a positive market response to the partnership.
Liquidity is not free: the hidden cost of quarterly windows
The US$500 minimum investment may sound attractive, but it does not mean investors can enter and exit freely at any time. The fund retains the characteristics of an interval fund: its repurchase window opens only once a quarter, and each window is limited to the redemption of about 5% of issued interests. If redemption requests exceed the available capacity, investors face the risk of having their requests scaled back proportionally. In practice, anyone buying today should be prepared to lock up their money for at least one quarter.
Liquidity is not the only cost. Investors must bear annual operating expenses of as much as 2.9%, far above those of a typical passive index-tracking ETF. The difference reflects the complexity of valuing underlying assets, including an unlisted AI company still in a high-growth phase, compared with calculating Apple’s quarterly revenue. The expenses, which mainly cover performance compensation and operating costs for the manager and platform provider, represent a significant frictional cost for each investment divided into tokens.
Regulatory easing: the signal from the SEC
The biggest force behind the experiment’s launch this year was a subtle shift in the stance of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. On September 17, the SEC cleared a path for the trading and circulation of tokenised shares. On September 21, it followed up with specific instructions allowing fund interests to circulate on authorised private electronic platforms.
This does not amount to a blanket regulatory relaxation. The SEC has not opened the door for retail investors to trade any cryptocurrency. Instead, it has drawn a clear line: compliant financial assets, such as regulated funds, may use public ledgers for digital ownership records and transfers. Wood said the move could reshape access to public and private markets, signalling not merely a change for one fund but a possible evolution in the broader asset-pricing system.
Who benefits — and whose influence is fading?
For younger investors interested in hard technology, the fund offers a rare opportunity to gain exposure to the equity of future technology giants. Valuations of SpaceX and OpenAI have continued to surge over the past two years, while ordinary investors have lacked both access to primary-market information and the substantial capital needed to secure allocations. Now, the entry ticket to the “next generation of technology stocks” has fallen to US$500.
This poses a real challenge to the distribution networks of traditional private funds. For years, stakes in the most sought-after start-ups have been divided among family offices and ultra-high-net-worth individuals through private relationship networks. More ordinary affluent investors have had to settle for buying secondary shares after companies list. As information becomes standardised and transparent on-chain, the information advantage underpinning the existing distribution system is likely to be rapidly weakened.
It is worth noting that the fund’s net assets grew significantly over several months, rising from US$208 million in July 2025 to US$558 million in January 2026. This suggests genuine market demand for the tokenisation of scarce unlisted assets. However, the pace of growth also reflects factors specific to the current stage, and it would be unwise to conclude from a single set of figures that the trend is certain to continue.