ARK Seeks SEC Approval for Blockchain-Based Share Classes

ARK Investment Management is seeking SEC approval to offer tokenized shares in its ARK Venture Fund, a non-diversified closed-end interval fund. This move could pave the way for blockchain ownership and secondary trading for registered interval funds.

The fund currently offers three share classes: Class D (ARKVX), Class S (ARKSX), and Class U (ARKUX). However, ARK wants to add an Exchange Class and a Tokenized Class with no sales load. The Tokenized Class will use distributed-ledger technologies to track ownership and can be traded on SEC-registered Regulation ATS systems or peer-to-peer through whitelisted wallets.

According to ARK, some tokenized transactions may settle on a T+0 basis, while Exchange Class transactions are expected to settle on a T+1 basis. The proposed order will replace the prior exemptive order issued in 2025 that prohibited the fund from offering shares in the unlisted category without a secondary market.

ARK submitted an initial application on May 20th, revised it on June 11th, and filed its second amendment on August 7th. The SEC released the notice concerning this issue on August 24th, with no hearing requests made yet.